style=”text-align: center;”>click here“…Gibb’s marimbas are a nice touch on ‘Atlantis’…The drummer brings the most personality to the record with a delicious crashing solo on ‘Rotunda’ and extra rhythmic juice on ‘You Taught My Heart to Sing.’…On the three originals (one by each member) that close the album, in particular Gonzalez’s irrepressible ‘Brazilian Girls,’ the amount of pianistic imitation lessons. (Gonzalez) On a solo rendition of ‘Naima’ he also acquits himself tastefully, if not originally…” Michael J. West
Benito Gonzalez, Gerry Gibbs, Essiet Okon Essiet
The title says all you need to know about how three musicians—Gonzalez, Gibbs and Essiet—tackle the music (and more) of legendary pianist McCoy Tyner. Pianist Benito Gonzalez, drummer Gerry Gibbs and bass player Essiet Okon Essiet rally around the music of McCoy Tyner on their new Whaling City Sound recording and the result is pure jazz joy.
Lavishly arranged and beautifully played Passion Reverence Transcendence is an unequivocal triumph of sound and spirit. Gonzalez, Gibbs, and Essiet celebrate Tyner with gusto. Gonzalez interprets Tyner’s stuff aggressively, passionately, with modern flourishes to keep pace with Gibbs’ driving rhythms. Gibbs, in typical fashion, charges into it with his brawny, supersonic jazz drumming. Essiet is critical and fabulous in his support role, diving into a blend of traditional, contemporary and fusion lines that pushes the arrangements into some seriously sparkling terrain.
Produced by Gibbs and beautifully captured, the recording feels live without the rawness.
And it’s all ridiculously high energy. The trio doesn’t bother kicking back much. Gibbs and Essiet drive the opening tunes, “Fly With the Wind” and “Just Feelin’,” along with “The Greeting,” which features a nice interlude from Essiet. Some of it’s playful, like “Inner Glimpse,” which finds Gonzalez and Gibbs holding onto the rhythmic motif while Essiet dances playfully around. After digging into nine Tyner compositions, the three artists each contribute one of their own tunes to close the record. Essiet launches into the wryly elaborate “Tyner/Train Express” and Gibbs serves up the stylish, bluesy jazz of “Between Friends.” The closer, Gonzalez’s “Brazilian Girls,” explodes with melody about a minute in and spends the rest of its seven-minute length making good on that initial promise. While they are not Tyner compositions per se, they are in the spirit of the great pianist and they settle in nicely with the compositions that came before it on the recording.
Together, the trio embraces, and even supercharges Tyner’s vibe without succumbing to cliches. The material is always melodic, always together, thanks to the dexterity and high energy you’d expect from each of these musicians. They’ve proven themselves on their independent projects, and they prove themselves on Passion Reverence Transcendence: The Music of McCoy Tyner.687606010222_SalesSheet
#27, Eric WyattLook to the Sky Brooklyn-born and bred Eric owns a solid berth along the saxophone continuum originally laid out by guys like Parker, Coltrane and Rollins. Throughout his career, his playing has been edgy and inventive, heartfelt and poignant. In fact, his father was good friends with Rollins and after Wyatt’s dad passed away, Sonny Rollins became involved in Eric’s music. “After my dad passed in 1989, Sonny became very present in my music and offered his help. I was given the opportunity to record my first CD, Godson, on the Japanese label King Records. Sonny suggested the title Godson because it explained his and my dad’s Hope. The Godson CD featured Al Foster, Rufus Reid and Mark Soskin, all members of Sonny’s bands. Look to the Sky, Wyatt’s debut for Whaling City Sound and his sixth recording overall, is magnificently realized, both instrumentally and emotionally. There are musical nods to his father (“Jolley Charlie”) and mother (“Psalm for Phennie”), to Coltrane (“My Favorite Things”) and a few other intimate touch-points, some original, a few written by his accompanist, Benito Gonzalez. Indeed, Wyatt is joined here by excellent progressive musicians, including the resounding pianist Gonzalez, drummers Shinnosuke Takahashi and Kyle Pool, Eric Wheeler on bass and Keyon Harrold on trumpet. Together, their music is filled with hope and dedication, reciprocity and passion. With every recording, Wyatt flourishes, in terms of artistry and intensity, power and finesse. Look to the Sky is the man’s—and his band’s— finest and fullest record yet.
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#45 Alma Micic That Old Feeling check out new video for “Estate” on YouTube Alma Micic Quartet serves up a delightful take on timeless standards, embellished by an original, and a version of the Romany anthem “Solnishko”, with visions of a dreamy night, both sentimental and hopeful. Songs inspired by dancing in the moonlight, till the sunrise comes, Alma’s new album That Old Feeling will leave you with a sweet feeling.
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Chartbound Dave Zinno UnisphereRiver of January. CLICK HERE to download a general radio station ID “Hello, this is Dave Zinno of Dave Zinno Unisphere & the new WCS release River of January, thanks for listening.” The songs are lavish jazz adventures, rich with texture, ripe with melodicism, and simply joyful audio journeys. The band is spectacular: Unisphere includes the talents of sax man Mike Tucker (Arturo Sandoval), drummer Rafael Barata (Milton Nascimento, Marc Johnson), Leo Genovese (Joe Lovano, Esperanza Spaulding), and Crescent City trumpeter Benny Bloom. Zinno leads them the way a hopeless romantic treats a first love: gently, understanding and worshipful. He glorifies his accompanists and allows them to go on at length, indulging their considerable talents and making River of January a wall of glorious of sound. This isn’t to say that it’s stodgy. Zinno infuses the work with progress. The band takes the vibe of traditional jazz and reverses the paradigm, so the songs, while familiar, certainly don’t remain the same. There are many highlights here, and while it wouldn’t be a waste of space to speak about them individually, it would be easier to say that these tunes all include rushes of adrenaline, sweetness of melody and serious elements of style. River of January is a work of forward thinking tradition and one that has much substance within it to discover.
As seasoned and important players on the national and international trad jazz scenes, Sheryl Bailey and Harvie S—known together as Plucky Strum—made real impact with their recent eponymous debut, a work which showcased discerning talent and true creative craft.
On their follow-up, the aptly named Departure, Harvie and Bailey dig a little deeper, engaging in some creative improvisation and interplay. Those familiar with their work—Harvie has played with many of the greats, including Jim Hall, Larry Coryell, Pat Martino, Gil Evans and Thad Jones—will love how they’ve enhanced the adventure here, filtering in Sheryl’s electric guitar with subtle electronics, clever bebop excursions and some stellar, simpatico interplay that takes the duo into exhilarating sonic regions.
All in all, Departure is accomplished and masterful. The material is bravely selected and boldly performed. The recording is balanced and skillfully produced, with lovely mixing and mastering. Interpretations, like CSN’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” with Harvie’s bowed bass lines and Sheryl’s tactile exploration, is one example, but there are many equally wonderful examples on the record, all of which deserve to be heard. This is major league stuff, brilliant and beautiful.
Plucky Strum Review Jazz Podium
SHERYL BAILEY GETS PLAYFUL AND VIRTUOSIC AT THE BULLS HEAD
Although guitarist Sheryl Bailey and bassist Harvie S have been neighbors for years and have gigged together, recording a duo session together is an idea that didn’t materialize until Bailey acquired a new, custom-made acoustic guitar. An informal jam one day lit the spark, and the heartfelt, intimate and stylistically diverse Plucky Strum is the result.
The relaxed mood that permeates most of the tracks is particularly evident on Bailey’s “Broken Glass,” a ballad rhythmically tied to gently sashaying bossa pulses. The guitarist leads the way throughout, her lustrous chords and single-note soloing sketching the tune’s meditative theme while the bassist remains in a supporting role. On Harvie’s good-natured “Bluzin’ F,” he and Bailey partner on tight unison lines that lend the piece a sense of formal structure. Throughout the album, though, the duo mostly switch between lead and supporting roles while milking the blues dialect to full effect. Bailey’s folksy “Woods Talk” finds the guitarist at her most expressive, spinning off steely chords and blues-inflected solo lines while Harvie displays the full tonal range of his double-bass, from plucked staccato notes in the outer limits of his instrument’s upper register to the rich, resonant tones at the bottom end.
Two tributes are album highlights. “To Bea,” written by Harvie to honor his late mother, is a vivacious, up-tempo bossa romp. “Charlie Haden,” another work by the bassist, is an homage to the late jazz legend that radiates a happy, upbeat spirit.
Regardless of their stylistic orientation, the 10 performances captured on Plucky Strum are uniformly warm-blooded, refreshingly spontaneous and occasionally truly virtuosic. —Mark Holston
– See more at: https://www.jazziz.com/harvie-s-sheryl-bailey/#sthash.JY0LTFA3.dpuf
~A nice review written by editor, Dan Forte~
WHALING CITY SOUND
“HARVIE S-SHERYL BAILEY/Plucky Strum: The cover art could trick you into thinking this is a Grant Geissman set. Fun thing is, the playing could as well. With the guitarist and the bassist playing friendlier music that either of these chopmeisters is usually associated with, they might only be a duo with no augmentation, but they know how to raise a proper racket. With killer technical skills between them, they actually sound like they are putting that aside to have a good time. Never coming off like the master class it really is, this is just two cats working it off the clock that invite you to string along for a good time.”
Announces April 7th release of
Whaling City Sound is proud to announce the release for the debut acoustic project from bass virtuoso, Harvie S and “sizzling guitar goddess” Sheryl Bailey
CD Release Performances
Boston:
April 12 3-5 p
April 14
New York:
April 17, 6p
55 Christopher St. (Sixth/Seventh Avenue) New York (212) 929-9883
Plucky Strum, featuring ten original tunes by Sheryl Bailey and Harvie S, is an extraordinary pairing that weaves together intimate musical story lines.
It is in a category ‘beyond’ Jazz, utilizing a myriad of musical styles.
Made up of Sheryl’s acoustic guitar and Harvie’s acoustic bass,
the two explore the joy of creative improvisation through lush harmonies, beautiful melodic lines, and captivating rhythms.
🎉Congratulations Aaliyah Fuentes on graduating at Johnson & Wales University! Wishing all the best as she gets ready to leave Mixed Media and graduate with a degree in Media & Communications!🎉 #gradseason🎓 #springintern2024#mixedmedia... See MoreSee Less
🎉Congratulations Aaliyah Fuentes on graduating at Johnson & Wales University! Wishing all the best as she gets ready to leave Mixed Media and graduate with a degree in Media & Communications!🎉 #Gradseason#Springintern2024#mixedmedia... See MoreSee Less
Wishing #JWU’s 2024 Spring Intern Aaliyah Fuentes all the best as she gets ready to leave Mixed Media and graduate with a degree in Media & Communications! linkedin.com/in/aaliyah-fuentes02
Music industry consultant and publicist Ginny Shea has garnered international exposure for her clients through radio and video promotion, print media, and her vast industry network.
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click here“…Gibb’s marimbas are a nice touch on ‘Atlantis’…The drummer brings the most personality to the record with a delicious crashing solo on ‘Rotunda’ and extra rhythmic juice on ‘You Taught My Heart to Sing.’…On the three originals (one by each member) that close the album, in particular Gonzalez’s irrepressible ‘Brazilian Girls,’ the amount of pianistic imitation lessons. (Gonzalez) On a solo rendition of ‘Naima’ he also acquits himself tastefully, if not originally…” Michael J. West
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Music industry consultant and publicist Ginny Shea has garnered international exposure for her clients through radio and video promotion, print media, and her vast industry network.
