The band for Rebecca Coupe Franks appearance at Jazz Live San Diego, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 8-10 PM PT from the Seville Theatre at San Diego City College (and broadcast LIVE at Jazz 88.3 FM San Diego and on the web at http://Jazz88.org) has just been announced....
NEW THIS WEEK FOR 2/17/11 - Finally adding the Mingus Big Band 2010 Grammy Winner for Best Large Ensemble Jazz Album...hoo ray! New Charlie Haden music and new music from Art Hillery, the pianist for our last Jazz Live with Red Holloway and Plas Johnson.
BANN – “AS YOU LIKE” (Saxophone/highly electrified guitar quartet, doing mostly originals and some standards).
PETER ELDRIDGE – “MAD HEAVEN” (Vocalist/pianist, doing mostly straight-ahead, original material).
DIRK FISHCER & GEORGE STONE – “COMING OF AGE” (Swinging big band, with a mix of originals and jazz tunes).
CHARLIE HADEN QUARTET WEST – “SOPHISTICATED LADIES” (Straight-ahead quartet, with all-star females on vocal tracks, backed by strings).
CURT HANRAHAN QUARTET – “SOULJOURNER” (Saxophonist/flutist, recorded live. Mix of originals and jazz tunes).
ARET HILLERY – “WORKS OF ART” (Pianist, leading various band configurations. All originals, with 3 vocal tracks).
MAD ROMANCE – “AIM HIGH” (Vocal ensemble, doing Great American Songbook, with a couple of new standards).
TONY MESSINA – “LIVE IN NEW YORK AT THE IRIDIUM JAZZ CLUB” (Male vocalist, with a good voice, doing mostly standards).
MINGUS BIG BAND – “LIVE AT THE JAZZ SHOWCASE” (2010 Grammy winner, recorded live, mostly progressive performances).
ALON NECHUSHTAN – “WORDS BEYOND” (Hard driving piano trio, doing all originals).
PLUNGE – “TIN FISH TANGO” (Various horns, backed by only a bass, doing all originals).
I'm blogging the show live and you can listen at http://Jazz88.org or 88.3 FM in San Diego....
9:23 Tune 11 <a blues shouter> They didn't say this was the end, but it sure looks like it based on the time...heading downstairs....
Looks like this will be the tune before the last one...then it's down for the close and onto the rest of the show...
9:14 Tune 10 "Theme from Pink Panther" Plas Johnson plays on the tune that made him famous...you knew he recorded the famous saxophone solo on this tune, right?!
9:07 Tune 9 "Delilah" featuring pianist Art Hillary. Richard Reid is really growly playing the bass...his microphone pickup on the bass really picks him up...sounds great! Everyone's taking a turn on this one...Garryck King on drums just did a nice thing with mallets...I think.
9:01 Tune 8 "Drink Muddy Water" with Red taking the lead on vocals and letting the theatre audience get a few responses in to his calls. The band swings.
8:58 Station ID Break and Q&A: We heard stories about Red and Plas' time in the Army. Red as a bandleader, after doing a stint in the motor pool and 'red lining' his pay...I guess that means he didn't take his pay for some reason. Plas was happy to be done with his time!
Time for me to figure out what we are going to banter and babble about at the 9PM station ID break.
8:47 Tune 7 "Caravan" Red sings the lyric to remember the name of the tune...featuring Garryck King on the buckets.
8:38 Tune 6 "Talk of the Town" Nice ballad choice. Again, Plas calling the tunes as he sees them from the stage. And his buddy Red is hanging right there with the band on stage...bet he wishes he was playing side by side with Plas (they talked about this in the pre-recorded interview).
8:31 Tune 5 "I Feel Good" A little James Brown being pulled out of the hat by Plas. The crowd is loving it!
8:25 Tune 4 "Yes, Yes" - Red does some magic rhyming 'pass' with 'yes'.
Red schmoozing the fine ladies with a tune he just wrote...I think I know the title...I cleared this for on-air...we'll see if I regret that decision!
8:17 Tune 3 "Hittin The Jug" - Plas wailing on a slow blues, after deciding what they were going to play. Looks like there isn't a set list for tonight's festivities!
8:10 Tune 2 <some title> Red Holloway leads the packed Seville Theatre in a blues sing-a-long.
8:01 Tune 1 "Lucky So and So" We didn't quite hit the 8:00 mark with the first tune, so I wonder what the 'toss' sounded like...the end of Tune 0 and then we went right into the show...LIVE radio with Jazz Legends at it's most unpredictable!
7: 56 Tune 0 "My Shining Hour" Supposed to be for the theatre only, as a last mix check for broadcast...but they didn't quite finish before the 8:00 toss from the studio, so I'm sure the radio audience heard the end of it, with my "LIVE from the Seville Theatre..." opener.
Some pre-show stuff...
Plas, Richard, and Garryk at the soundcheck...
Me with Red and Plas after the Jazz Live San Diego interview...
PopMatters: " The album lacks for nothing as far as musical talent, with Hakim’s deft
handiwork on drums, Rachel Z’s rollercoaster waves of piano movements,
and Royce’s rumbling bass lines. They even manage to add flavor to some
of the original compositions with flourishing solos and tempo changes,
as in the Trio’s revisit of “Angry Chair” by Alice in Chains. " "The downside is that the Trio doesn’t always mesh as a single unit. At
times, their collaboration seems more like three soloists playing at
once, each one elbowing the other for coveted space."
Sea of Tranquility (John Neudorf): "The trio produces a full rich sound that will have all jazz fans
reaching for their wallets. This may in fact be my favourite jazz CD
this year and when you look at the players it is not hard to see why." "What makes this album a little different is the choice of songs the trio
chose to tackle. Instead of the usual standards of the past, they have
mostly reworked recent rock and pop compositions, making this a
completely refreshing and rewarding listen. Although I encourage
rock/pop fans to give this a listen, this is still a jazz recording
through and through, albeit a very good one."
AllAboutJazz.com (Jeff Winbush): "The eclectic and restless musical tastes of drummer Omar Hakim and pianist Rachel Nicolazzo (aka Rachel Z) offer some mighty impressive bait to reel them in, The Trio of Oz's repertoire reading like an hour's worth of college radio station programming." "...rendering
their creation of new ways to splice the seemingly contradictory jazz
and rock idioms together into some sort of mutant hybrid—capturing the
fun of the latter without compromising the integrity of the
former—completely understandable."
Some great new added by Joe, including the Marcus Shelby, Lisa Hilton...will be interesting to hear the Marcus Miller and Omar Hakim/Rachel Z things. You can hear a lot of this for the first time on radio weekly on The New Jazz Thing (http://TNJT.com), 6-8 PM PT Thursdays on Jazz 88.3 FM and http://Jazz88.org
NEW THIS WEEK FOR 2/3/11
HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL – “I FEEL YOU” (Mostly vocal album, with a contemporary vibe).
MATIJA DEDIC TRIO – “MD IN NYC” (Piano trio, with a mixed bag of standards and originals, quiet tunes and progressive jams).
PHIL DeGREG – “AMAZONAS” (Nice Brazilian grooves on originals, jazz tunes and standards).
MIKE DiRUBBO – “CHRONOS” (Saxophone-organ trio, with an edgy groove to it, doing all originals).
OMAR HAKIM/RACHEL Z – “THE TRIO OF OZ” (Piano trio, doing jazz versions of tunes by Alice in Chains, Coldplay, Depeche Mode and the like).
LISA HILTON – “UNDERGROUND” (Typically nice release from this pianist, doing all her own compositions).
AMY LONDON – “LET’S FLY” (Female vocalist doing standards and jazz tunes. Nice arrangements).
GENE LUDWIG – “LOVE NOTES OF COLE PORTER” (Great jams on Porter tunes by this organist, who died last year. Various band configurations).
MARCUS MILLER – “A NIGHT IN MONTE CARLO” (Bassist, backed by the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, with a mixed bag of contemporary, straight-ahead and Brazilian tunes).
NEW YORK ELECTRIC PIANO – “KEYS TO THE CITY, VOLS. 1 & 2” (Double disc release of vocals on one, and progressive instrumentals on the two).
MARCUS SHELBY ORCHESTRA – “SOUL OF THE MOVEMENT” (Mostly vocal big band recordings of songs made famous during the Civil Rights Movement).
DENNIS TAYLOR – “STEPPIN’ UP” (Saxophone/organ trio, funky but straight-ahead versions of originals and new standards).
DOUG WEBB – “RENOVATIONS” (Another outstanding, straight-ahead quartet release by this saxophonist, doing all standards).
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