Bloggerhythms

Last week Bob Dylan introduced us to his band's new guitar player. Joel Paterson is a very talented electric and acoustic axman who specializes in releasing concept albums that show off his unquestionable versatility playing instrumental covers of  rockabilly, country,  jazz, blues, and  western swing. On his own, Paterson has recorded two Christmas records, an album of original, acoustic blues, and  two albums of Beatles' classics. I first discovered Paterson last year playing lead and steel guitar on an album starring upcoming singer-songwriter Annie Dolan with whom he shares equal billing on a set of tunes that emphasizes her fine vocals on a bunch of old pop, rock, and country standards mostly from the fifties and sixties. Let It Be Guitar! was originally released in 2019 and again in 2023 as a digital only album. Paterson's choices are mostly from The Beatles' touring years, and that could be because th...

The late Vince Guaraldi is known to most people only as the pianist on the soundtracks to the Peanuts TV specials and especially as the genius behind the most famous jazz Christmas album in history, A Charlie Brown Christmas. That is a real shame for a man who died too young of a heart attack at age 47 just after completing work on another Peanuts TV show earlier that day. Fantasy Records released this fourteen-song greatest hits disc on vinyl in 1980 and on CD in 1989. It's far from being a complete retrospective because it only contains music Guaraldi recorded for that label, but it still serves as a very nice overview of this intriguing jazz man's work. Guaraldi started making records in the mid-50s as a sideman for Cal Tjader. He also sat in with Woody Herman. Later he played with percussionist Mongo Santamaria and Dave Brubeck's bassist, Eugene Wright. In 1959 Guaraldi set out on his own. It would be 1963 before he hit paydirt when "Cast Your Fate to the Wind...

Most people are only familiar with Jim Messina as one half of a very musical and eclectic middle of the road duo, Loggins and Messina, who were incredibly popular in the first half of the 1970s. Some readers may remember that before L&M rose to stardom Messina helped Richie Furay organize Poco after they both completed a stint with the marvelous Buffalo Springfield. Messina's recording career began at age sixteen while he was still in high school as lead guitarist for His Jesters, a totally instrumental, rock n' roll sextet. Other members were Ron House and Bill Beckman on rhythm guitars, Jim Sholstedt on bass, drummer Larry Cundieff and saxman Dave Archuleta. Despite their ages, the group secured a recording contract and released an LP, The Dragsters,  on Audio Fidelity Records in 1964. While the music they played is surf-rock, the album's theme centers around the related West Coast car culture. The record has two cars on the front cove...

Regular visitors to Bloggerhythms should be very aware by now that I've always considered most rap/hip-hop distasteful. Only a couple of exceptions come to mind: " My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style " (1991) by Canada's Dream Warriors and much of Gil Scott-Heron 's work that - to me - sounds like rap in an embryonic state. Just because I'm featuring Beastie Boys today doesn't mean my tastes have changed. But, when an artist - any artist - creates work that I believe is worthwhile I like to spread the word. The critically acclaimed trio released two instrumental albums during their career, and neither one is a rap record although you can hear elements of the genre in both of them. The older one,  The In Sound From Way Out!  (1996), is a compilation of previously released tracks. It contains five instrumentals from the Brooklyn outfit's  Check Your Head  LP, six from  Ill Communication  and two b-sides. You'll hear Stax and...

How great was Brian Wilson? If you listen to At My Piano -  the late star's final, solo, studio album of fifteen unadorned piano tracks played by The Beach Boys' resident genius - you'll quickly understand the extent of his talent as a melodicist. The simplicity of this set allows the listener to fully appreciate the beauty of Wilson's creations performed on a musical instrument that is truly irresistible when played by a great talent. Some critics have said that Wilson took the easy way out, that these songs have been redone too many times to be appreciated again, but I counter with this: how many artists have issued multiple live albums with arrangements played very close to their original records or released remixes of old songs just to sell more product? At least Wilson offered listeners something quite different, although he admits that the original idea belonged to his record label, Decca. However, it was a request he willingly undertook. T...

I've become addicted to  Tom Petty's Buried Treasure , found at SiriusXM channel 711. It's a continually running, hour long show where Petty mostly played obscure records from his own collection. At one time the program was a weekly feature on the satellite radio service's Deep Tracks channel. Later, all 250-plus episodes were spun off onto their own station. Petty featured a lot of rock and roll, rhythm & blues and straight ahead blues from the 50s, 60s and 70s, but the rocking DJ with a great sense of humor didn't hesitate to play newer stuff - like The White Stripes and Kings of Leon - if he was so moved. The late star has played a lot of very old music that is new to me. A typical show may feature Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James, The McCoys, The Zombies, The Animals, Chuck Berry, Ann Peebles, Canned Heat, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Taj Mahal, Jimi Hendrix, The Rascals, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Shangri-La...

This CD's title couldn't be clearer. Rhino's  The Very Best of Booker T. & The MG's  has all of the hits and a few other gems released by Stax's famous house band that they recorded under their own name. There are many MGs compilations out there in musicland but this single CD with sixteen tracks is the one to get if you don't need a multi-disc collection. It has superlative sound and two non-LP singles - "Booker-Loo" and "Slum Baby," - that don't even appear on Fantasy Records' three disc set. The Very Best of Booker T. & The MG's covers the years 1962 to 1971, and as the back jewel box insert says, only "original singles masters were used on this collection." The CD includes detailed liner notes with a history of the quartet. For each track you'll learn who played what, the release date and chart positions. You really can't ask for more. The big hits included here are...

Doc Severinsen made dozens of albums with various outfits while working for Johnny Carson and leading The Tonight Show Band from 1967 until Carson retired in 1992, but it took the trumpeter until 1986 to take his TV band into the studio to record a very good album, The Tonight Show Band With Doc Severinsen . Severinsen led a large, high energy group of nineteen musicians if you count the boss who was the primary soloist on nine of the thirteen tracks. While Severinsen and his men didn't break any new ground, much of the CD is loaded with extremely well-played, modern arrangements of old 30s and 40s big band standards, including instrumental hits of trombonist Tommy Dorsey ("I'm Getting Sentimental Over You"), clarinetist Artie Shaw ("Begin The Beguine"), and vibraphone player Lionel Hampton ("Flying Home"). The set also includes three Benny Goodman classics, "King Porter Stomp," "Don't Be That Way,...

The Vince Guaraldi Trio would probably be forgotten today if it wasn't for their much loved holiday album,  A Charlie Brown Christmas . It was released in 1965 to accompany the television cartoon of the same name. The importance of Guaraldi's 1962 single, "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" - and how it helped spawn his Christmas LP that probably wouldn't exist without his only non-holiday, top 40 entry - cannot be underestimated. The instrumental peaked at #22 at a time when it was still possible for a jazz record to make an impact on the the Hot 100. It inspired TV producer Lee Mendelson - who liked what he heard on the radio - to commission the piano player to compose the soundtrack to A Boy Named Charlie Brown , a television special that was never aired because the producer couldn't find a sponsor. However, a soundtrack album,  Jazz Impressions Of A Boy Named Charlie Brown,  from the untelevised program was released and included a tune...

I'm sure classical music fans will howl about the crimes committed by The Brian Setzer Orchestra so let this be a warning to those of you whose ears are easily offended: Wolfie and Ludwig never rocked like this. Even to Setzer's most ardent fans Wolfgang's Big Night Out may appear to be the biggest gimmick this side of Weird Al Yankovic but somehow it's a contrivance that works. I don't know if Setzer meant this album as a joke or not. He takes some of the world's most famous classical masterpieces and hilariously renames them after totally reinventing them. Beethoven's "Fur Elise" became "For Lisa," "Blue Danube" has flowed into "Some River In Europe," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" became "Take A Break Guys." The "1812 Overture" is now "1812 Overdrive." The title track was derived from Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and Mendelssohn's famous wedding march wa...

Bett Butler and her husband Joël Dilley have been featured in Bloggerhythms a few times in the past, separately and as a team. Dilley is a bass player and composer who works in multiple genres including jazz, funk, R&B and Latin music. Butler, the more mainstream artist of the two, is a singer-songwriting pianist with a soulful voice who also works in many styles but appears to favor mainstream jazz. I became familiar with Butler first. She recorded two albums of original jazz tunes followed by an album of covers from the Great American Songbook that features only her voice and Dilley's piano. Butler's last original solo work is the finest record in her catalog so far, a 2016 Christmas release, Songs For The Christmas Child . It is not a record for children.    In 2020, Dilley wrote and composed a soundtrack to the politically influenced film,  Wall In The Desert , with Butler assisting the multi-instrumentalist by reciting the fam...

How Swing of Many Colors by Jazz Arts Trio was created makes no difference to me because the end result is pleasing piano jazz. But, I'm sure many of the genre's true aficionados will be appalled as soon as they discover how the album was made - even without ever hearing a note. The trio's goal while making this album was to exactly duplicate recordings originally made by great jazz pianists they admire. Almost all of the selections on  Swing of Many Colors  were transcribed note for note - including the bass and drums - and recorded much like classical musicians recreate works that are centuries old. That's the part I believe may upset some of the more devoted jazz fans. It's a genre that takes pride in improvisation and you'll find little of it here. Jazz Arts Trio are Frederick Moyer on piano, Peter Tillotson on bass, and drummer Peter Fraenkel. They were high school friends who played in a band together, went in separate directions after graduation, then re...

Here is a word for word reposting of an old review of a great concert I attended sixteen years ago. I admit I was quite skeptical when the opportunity arrived to see Rick Wakeman's "Grand Piano Tour." I was expecting dinosaur rock & roll from a dinosaur musician but instead we were all treated to an outstanding night of music from a man who is a true keyboard virtuoso. Wakeman played alone on his grand piano all evening. He didn't have a band and he didn't need one. He performed music from all phases of his career and regaled us with extremely humorous and detailed stories about every piece. We heard music from his days with the Strawbs. He played two Yes classics, "Wondorous Stories" and the lengthy but superb "And You And I" from Yes's Close To The Edge . He played half of his 1972 solo album The Six Wives Of Henry The VIII and an instrumental version of "Morning Has Broken," the Cat Stevens class...

Big band -  A large dance  or jazz band  of ten musicians or more, usually featuring improvised solos by lead players but otherwise playing orchestrated music . When most people think of big bands today they often conjure up faded, black and white images of Glenn Miller, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Count Basie and Woody Herman. Those men led some of the more popular outfits whose heyday was during the latter part of The Great Depression and the Second World War - approximately 1935 to 1946. It's the only time in history that jazz was at the forefront of American popular music. As a kid I became a fan of these large ensembles through my Mother's old, scratchy, breakable, 78 RPM records. My fascination with big bands continued into my early adulthood and was a significant influence in giving birth to any interest I have in jazz today. Despite the fact he r...

Steve Howe has now been in the spotlight for over fifty years. While the virtuoso will always be remembered as a prominent member of the world's most successful prog-rock band he has also recorded a lot of work outside of Yes - and his later band, Asia - that is worth hearing. Such is the case with  New Frontier  (2019),   the third album - and second studio effort - released under the name of The Steve Howe Trio. New Frontier  is a jazz-fusion set that shares the spotlight with rock just as much as it does jazz. It features Howe on electric and acoustic guitars; Ross Stanley, a quite talented Hammond B3 player; and the leader's son, Dylan Howe , on drums. The boss isn't selfish. Stanley gets lots of space to stretch out and drummer Howe gets to shine when the situation calls for it. The trio doesn't employ a bass player, but there is so much happening on each track that the bottom end isn't missed. This music isn't for everyone, but for fans of Howe or those l...

Can any of you jazz fans out there imagine what it would have been like if Dave Brubeck lived a double life, one as a Presbyterian minister and the other as a piano playing leader of a jazz quartet? The Rev. Bill Carter and his band - named after his other vocation - answer that musical question. Not only does the Presbybop Quartet sound like one of Brubeck's classic groups, the famous jazz pianist was a fan of this aggregation. The group includes Al Hamme on sax, clarinet and flute, Tony Marino on acoustic bass and Tom Whaley on drums. This is not a group of amateurs playing for their own amusement. These groovy cats are serious jazz musicians. Hamme has played with jazz all-stars Clark Terry and Slam Stewart. Marino has played bass for Betty Buckley, famous on Broadway for her starring role in Cats, and Whaley has a national reputation playing with the likes of Mose Allison. Leader Carter, who composed most of the music on this CD in addition to saving souls, is blessed with th...

CMH Label Group , the independent record company that has issued dozens of string quartet tribute albums under the moniker Vitamin String Quartet (VSQ) has covered artists as diverse as Slayer, Enya, Bon Jovi, Oasis, Warren Zevon, Bjork, Radiohead, Rush, Fleetwood Mac, and more. Even more recently they've released albums covering Lana Del Rey, Sigur Ros, Lady Gaga, Coldplay, and Kanye West. Tom Tally, a producer of over 50 VSQ albums  described VSQ's mission on Wikipedia. " Vitamin String Quartet is about applying rock n' roll attitude to classical technique."   Back in 2005 VSQ was responsible for a nice reworking of The Beach Boys' 1966 classic,  Pet Sounds. I   can't envision either string quartet fans or Slayer fans listening to classical arrangements of that band's work, but Pet Sounds is music that easily lends itself to a classical treatment. Despite the limitations of using only three string players and a percussionist the quartet's spars...

Released in 1980, Nine To The Universe is a virtually all-instrumental album that has never officially been issued on CD and was another in a long line of posthumous releases of Jimi Hendrix's music. Reportedly recorded in the first half of 1969 during the Electricladyland sessions, Nine To The Universe is nothing more than a bunch of informal and spontaneous jams Hendrix undertook with anybody who would play with him at that moment. The original album had only five tracks yet clocks in at over thirty-eight minutes, a good length for the days of the old 33 1/3 RPM record. In order to make it all fit on one LP over 40 minutes of music was edited from the original sessions. One example is the title cut. It was faded at 8:45 on the album but the full performance stretched out to 18:49. Hendrix is sensational on this album. Most of his playing is high energy, sometimes bordering on frantic. The best jams are the title cut in which a mean bass riff never relents under Hendrix...

I was a Dire Straits fan from the very beginning. Their first single "Sultans of Swing," from their debut album released in 1978, knocked me off of my feet. The band's third and fourth albums, Making Movies (1980) and Love Over Gold (1982), were among the best rock records I heard in the 80s. Both were big hits in the U. K. and America. I have to admit I was a little smug when the rest of the world suddenly discovered the band a few years later with "Money for Nothing" from their 1985 album Brothers In Arms . I said to myself, "This album is good but you haven't any idea what you missed." The band's leader, Mark Knopfler, consistently mixed classy guitar playing and singer-songwriter intelligence within the framework of a rock 'n roll band. The combination placed Dire Straits way above many long forgotten 80s synth rock bands, hair bands, and punk rockers. To this day Knopfler remains my favorite guitarist. As much as I liked Dire Str...

The Midiri Brothers' small jazz groups and big band arguably represent the classic Benny Goodman sound of the '30s and '40s better than any other musical organization ever to grace my ears. Joe Midiri is so devoted to Goodman's music that his groups often play the big band pioneer's recorded works transcribed note for note rather than interpret the pieces themselves. This may not be to the liking of someone who would rather own an original Van Gogh in lieu of a print of his work, but since the Midiris' are the only musical organization that I'm aware of that plays the clarinetist's music as a way of life their fans are happy, and judging by much of their press, deliriously so. This live concert CD was recorded at Bridgewater, N.J. on Jan. 13, 2001 on the occasion of the Midiris' second straight performance at an annual salute to Goodman. The brothers were thrilled to be the first group ever invited back two years in a row. The group performing then ...