CD of the Month
2004 Selections
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December 2004
Released by Colorado's own, Jazz Link Enterprises, Carl is accompanied by the extremely talented, Jeff Jenkins, piano, Kenny Walker, bass, Paul Romaine, drums and Rich Chiarluce on reeds, the finest quartet along the Front Range, world class musicians at that! The songbook for this fine album consists of 11 jazz chestnuts known to all like "Prisoner of Love", "Foggy Day" and "Since I Fell For You" plus Carl Dixon's composition in loving homage to his wife, "Anginella". In addition to Carl's lush vocals, the sidemen's playing is some of the best accompaniment ever for a vocalist and enhance one's listening experience. So, place the CD in your player, grab a bottle of your favorite libation and snuggle up by the fireplace with your honey because "It's A Time For Love" and Carl Dixon and The Jazz Cats will not dissapoint.
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October 2004
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September 2004
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August 2004
For his 2nd Palmetto Records release, Watson turned to his past to take another strong step forward in his career. On Horizon Reassembled, Watson reconvenes his well-regarded quintet from the ‘90s. While the band's origins began in the early ‘80s, the “happy band,” as fans called Horizon, solidified in the early ‘90s with the members featured on this CD: Edward Simón, piano; Terell Stafford, trumpet; Bobby Watson, saxophone; Essiet Okon Essiet, bass; and Victor Lewis, drums. Bobby has visited the Denver area and Jazz 89-KUVO several times over the years and remains one of the more popular saxophonista in the Mile High City. Bobby Watson & Horizon's latest CD recaptures their happy sound and reveals an all-star ensemble at work making the listener feel a mile high!
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July 2004
To bring such timeless classics as Lemon Drop, Cherokee, Round Midnight and Night in Tunisia into the present, Terry enlists a strong rhythm section and a string section of 16 violins, four violas and four cellos that often feel more in the spirit of big band arrangements than typical orchestral pieces. In other words, the strings swing! As he approaches his sixth decade as a performer, Terry's unflagging energy and enthusiastic performances continue to impress audiences internationally..
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We close out 2004 with a home grown album guaranteed to be a welcome addition to any serious jazz library, Carl Dixon and The Jazz Cats' "It's A Time For Love". Baritone vocalist Carl Dixon's debut is a throwback to the golden years of smooth as silk jazz crooners like Billy Eckstine, Joe Williams & Arthur Prysock. A native son of Trenton, New Jersey, Carl has been a resident of Denver for over 40 years after military service brought him to the "The Mile High City". Although Mr. Dixon has been singing for decades in jazz festivals across the country and around the world, "It's A Time For Love" is his first outing into a recording studio thanks to saxist Rich Chiaraluce who suggested he record a CD.
A new release from the quintet led by Colorado's own Allen Hermann and the late Carl Fontana. Although Hermann and Fontana had performed together many times, this is the first recording featuring the duo.
Origin Arts, a new independent jazz label presents the latest release by the singular jazz vocalist Giacomo Gates. Featuring the all-star band of Harold Danko, Ray Drummond, Greg Bandy, Vic Juris and Vincent Herring. His inventive manifestations on "Centerpiece" reveal his mastery of this niche art form. Not only is he a natural talent, Gates is gifted with the temperament of a purist and a skilled craftsman of a high musical intelligence.
Saxophonist Bobby Watson consistently tops the critics' music polls, likely because he is not one to stand still or be limited by categories. He commands every style of music he embraces from free jazz to swing to big band to hard bop. And with his highly individual sound, a GRAMMY® nomination and impeccable jazz credentials as the former musical director for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Watson is simply one of the finest players of his generation. His recent nomination by the Jazz Journalists Association as best alto saxophonist of 2003 is further testimony to that.
Terry Gibbs' new CD is, 52nd & Broadway: Songs of the Bebop Era. The recording also features the talents of Nicholas Payton on trumpet and James Moody on sax. The CD is a new take on twelve tunes that represent the bepop era, one of the most influential eras in the history of jazz. The album is more than a historical tribute.|
June 2004 On the other hand, Terence Blanchard's contribution, “Blessings,” involves a long-toned theme expressed by trumpet and sax in tight harmony and suspended over the rhythm section in a two-chord structure as Tyner fills in the counterbalancing movement with unmistakable Tynerish shimmers. Particularly effective is Christian McBride's emotionally performed tune, “West Philly Tone Poem,” initially bowed to Tyner's accompaniment to present the statement about his and Tyner's home town. Showcasing the versatility of McCoy Tyner leading a first-class group, Illuminations sheds even more light on the broad range of his talent.
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Leave it to Telarc to make available the works of a legendary jazz talent like McCoy Tyner, whose playing is as exciting as ever! Since joining Telarc in 1999, Tyner has been given the freedom to explore Latin music, perform in a trio setting and play solo. Now, on Illuminations, Tyner is joined by equally exciting musicians, each with his own sound as well, in a collaborative enterprise that compiles their own compositions with his. In addition to the standards like the lightly swinging “Come Rain Or Come Shine” or “Alone Together,” Illuminations achieves an even broader spectrum of styles by including Gary Bartz's “Soulstice,” based upon a theme, quickly and furiously stated, that invites the composer/saxophonist and Tyner to take off in an unrelenting drive throughout their solos.|
May 2004 Jospé is a strong but not domineering figure in every selection, complementing horns, guitar and keyboard with rhythmic foundations of vitality, dynamism and wit. It's a hip musical feast, guaranteed to set your feet and fanny in motion.
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Robert Jospé is back with another jazz tour de force. Jospé and his group Inner Rhythm combine salsa, swing, and world rhythms into a potent, high-energy stew. As jazz performers try to find ways to infuse other rhythms from around the globe into their music, they need only look to Robert Jospé-he's already leading the way. Drummer Robert Jospé is one of Virginia's best jazz musicians.|
April 2004 Now Wynton Marsalis has joined the roster of legendary jazz label Blue Note Records, reuniting with Blue Note president and music industry veteran Bruce Lundvall, who signed Wynton to his very first record deal in 1980. Marsalis makes his label debut with The Magic Hour, an upbeat, lyrical eight-song outing featuring his remarkable quartet—pianist Eric Lewis, bassist Carlos Henriquez and drummer Ali Jackson —and two special guests, Blue Note label mates Dianne Reeves and Bobby McFerrin. The Magic Hour is Marsalis' first jazz ensemble studio recording since 1999's Marciac Suite. His last album was All Rise, an extended composition for big band, gospel choir and symphony orchestra. “All Rise was such a huge piece involving over two hundred people. I wanted to produce my next recording with a smaller group,” says the trumpeter, who settled into Right Track Studios in New York for two days last June to record the new album. “I wanted to restate my basic love of jazz music in a quartet format,” says Marsalis.
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Wynton Marsalis has compiled a remarkable track record as a jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer. He has become the most recognized jazz artist in the world today. He serves as Artistic Director of the prestigious Jazz at Lincoln Center and is renowned as a jazz statesman—a role officially recognized in 2001 when United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan proclaimed him an international ambassador of goodwill and appointed him a UN Messenger of Peace. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards and is the first jazz musician ever to be honored with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in Music (for his epic 1997 recording Blood on the Fields).|
March 2004 A native of the South Bronx, Vega is a veteran of salsa and Latin jazz bands of Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz and Mongo Santamaria to name a few. A multi-talented trumpeter, percussionist, composer and arranger, he presents Latin jazz from a refreshingly original and contemporary perspective and has established himself as one of the innovators of the new generation of Latin jazz players with his fiery brand of real New York Latin jazz - a fusion of jazz repertoire and Latin rhythms. Aside from leading his own band and releasing his own CDs, Vega is also the 2003-2004 Artist-in-Residence for the award-winning Cityfolk program in Dayton, Ohio. Their innate grasp of the band as one family is evident on Squeeze, Squeeze, a CD named in fact for what Vega's son Aaron says to his dad at cross lights: "Squeeze, squeeze, Dad!"
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Ray Vega hated playing the trumpet at first. He'd seen the Machito Orchestra play in Central Park when he was 12 and right then and there decided he wanted to play the saxophone. Coming from the poorest Congressional district in the U.S. at the time, Vega was fortunate to have some help from school officials to get him into his school's special music program. When the band instructor told Vega he had no saxophones, Vega reluctantly picked up his brother's trumpet and started playing. At 13, Vega was being taught by trumpet master Jerry Gonzales and came to love his horn. Today Vega is one of the most engaging trumpeters in jazz and Latin music.|
February 2004 On the vamping "Glengarry, Glenross" and Kenny Barron's bebop redux "And Then Again," Moody pounces through his solos, the elegance of his variations further bulked up by his deliciously hefty sound. His ballad and medium-tempo statements ("Simplicity and Beauty") are similarly gratifying. Don't call it a comeback -- Moody never went away. But it's always cause for celebration to hear a giant of jazz reassert his towering stature once more.
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When all the right elements come together on a mainstream jazz album -- the soloists are inspired, the rhythm section conjures the appropriate grooves, the material matches the ambition of the musicians and the production suits the product -- euphoria ought to follow. Yet even when all the pieces don't fit, notable individual performances may lift a recording to an exalted plain. "Homage," saxophonist James Moody's first studio release in six years, is no masterpiece, yet Moody's playing is masterly "Homage," on which Moody confines himself to what might be his most rewarding instrument, the tenor saxophone, has a lot going for it: eager supporting players; new compositions by notables including Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver and Chick Corea; and arrangements by the commendable Bob Belden Moody's tenor tone is, as ever, gorgeous (hear him on "Lazy Afternoon," the album's only standard) and his organizational skills as a spontaneous melodist are unvarnished by time.|
January 2004 Silver's new eleven track CD, Rockin' With Rachmaninoff, is where classical music and jazz meet head on in a heavenly array of funky, gospelish colors, textures, and catchy themes that is reflective of Silver's creative genius. Now, twelve years later, Silver was finally in the position to release his long-awaited recording, thanks in part, to his signing with Bop City Records. "I knew somewhere down the line I'd get this music released," Silver said. "I'm very proud of it."
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"Blessed are the dreamers who make their dreams come true." Jazz legend and pianist Horace Silver certainly epitomizes that statement. Recognized now as the "Grandpop of Hardbop," for his outstanding work as a composer and bandleader and as one of the main originators of the styles known as hardbop and souljazz, Silver was blessed with a dream he had 13 years ago, the result of that dream formed the concept for a stage musical and a recently released album.
