HAVE SOME FUN WITH GEORGE'S QUIZZES!

The following are lyric portions from well known songs. How many titles can you identify?

1. I'll never use them
2. cool down papa
3. a little white light
4. she meant me
5. foolish fences
6. now shedding leaves
7. candlelight on the mistletoe
8. could there be eyes
9. just one look at you
10. that same shabby dress
11. with a wishing well
12. under an August moon
13. we both have a lifetime
14. any Russian play
15. two crazy people

GEORGE'S BRIEFS

Silvano Monasterios;  The River Here we have seven original compositions featuring a very together ensemble under the leadership of pianist Silvano Monasterios. Interesting instrumentation is found here, with flute, trumpet, vibes, and tenor sax among others. Percussion thrives here with a clear leaning towards Latin rhythms. This tight knit group is well worth hearing.

Kithara Entertainment; 2024; appx. 50 min.

Geoffrey Dean; Conceptions

Trumpet ace Geoffrey Dean leads his quartet through ten original compositions featuring his beautiful tone and resonant lyricism. On ballads and some medium and up tempo material, Dean and his colleagues give us a pure, no frills jazz session. In my humble opinion we need more albums like this. Straight ahead real deal jazz. There's nothing quite like it!

Cellar Music; 2025; appx. 51 min.

Jenna McLean; For Your Love

Here is a singer with strong jazz feeling and a nice and natural way of scatting. Backed up by a swinging quartet of guitar, piano, bass, and drums, McLean tackles nine tunes including “The Sweetest Sounds”, “When The Sun Comes Out”, and also three well written originals of hers. There's a charming, youthful exuberance in her approach, and she and friends get it all done with pizzazz. 

Jenna McLean Music; 2025; appx. 43 min.

Brent Jarvis; Dragonfly

Pianist Brent Jarvis leads a stellar sextet featuring the warm, beautiful tone flugelhornist-trumpeter Miguelito Valdés. The group is completed with alto sax, tenor sax, piano and Fender Rhodes, bass, and Latin percussion through six breathlessly elegant original tunes. This is music for a special bottle of Malbec or a beverage of your choice.

Self-produced; 2024; appx. 41 min.

Jon Bentley; Go Ahead

If you're into “groove” records, this one might well be for you. Tenor man Jon Bentley puts together a quartet of his saxophone, along with Hammond B-3 organ, guitar, and drums. The tunes are mostly bluesy-funky examples of this kind of instrumentation. Three choices more familiar to you might be these: “Still Crazy After All These Years”, Wayne Shorter's “Down In The Depths”, and Duke Ellington's “The Feeling Of Jazz”. Bentley and crew dive right into these stylistic sounds for B-3 fans.

Cellar Music Group; 2025; appx. 52 min.

WDR Big Band; Bluegrass

Bluegrass meets jazz? “No way”, you'd say. And I'd quickly agree, but here's some “fiddle” music in a jazz setting and guess what---it works! So grab your favorite partner and get those boots out on the dance floor. The fiddler and the big band provide nine rather extraordinary tracks to strut your stuff. And when the CD comes to an end, you may return to jazz normalcy---say, Miles and Coltrane, late '50's, on Prestige. Yahoo!

MCG Jazz; 2025; appx. 70 min.

Trilogy; The Slow Road

Here's even more fabulous music from Cellar with a quartet which simply weaves its way into your heart with nine tracks of perfection. Fortunately for you and me, seven of the nine tracks feature the incomparable Scott Hamilton on tenor sax. His colleagues, all of whom hit it out of the park, include Miles Black, piano; Bill Coon, guitar; and Jodi Proznick, bass. Hamilton is as always, as good as it gets on ballads like “I Thought About You”, “Thanks For The Memories”, and a Jobim rarity called “Luiza”. From the jazz book, there are also more winners in “Moose the Mooche”, “Hi Fly”, and a title I haven't encountered since an early Oscar Peterson record; it's called “Pompton Turnpike” and how nice to reacquaint. All players get five stars for a standout session. 

Cellar Music Group; 2025; appx. 52 min. 

Chad LB; Time In A Bottle

It's pretty rare these days to find a “with strings” jazz album. Most CDs nowadays are self produced, and the cost of adding strings is most likely prohibitive. Whatever the case, strings provide a lovely “blanket” for tenor sax man Chad LB. His sound is big and deep and beautifully controlled, possibly reminiscent of someone like Gene Ammons. His song selections are nearly all familiar favorites from the past. The two “pop hits”  are the title tune “Time In A Bottle” and surprise, surprise, Sinatra's old opus, “My Way”. In addition we hear “Autumn Leaves”, “These Foolish Things”, “Danny Boy”, “Misty”, and more. No barriers broken here, but none are needed. Chad LB and friends simply choose some “great oldies”, providing pure pleasure for anyone to hear.

Self produced; 2025; appx. 60 min.

Jeff Libman; Feet Off The Ground

Vancouver, B.C.'s Cellar label just keeps cranking out one terrific CD after another. This time the head honcho is guitarist Jeff Libman and a straight ahead rhythm section of Michael Kocour, piano; Ben Hedquist, bass; and Lewis Nash, drums. Keeping with Cellar's usual format, the session is perfectly balanced between original material and notable standards. From the latter category, we are treated to such winners as “A Sleepin' Bee”, “You're My Thrill”, “Love Letters”, “But Beautiful”, and a particular fave of mine, “Violets For Your Furs”. By the way, just in case you've forgotten about Dexter Gordon's jazz “hit”, “Cheese Cake”, oddly titled from way back, well here it is again for you to enjoy. This is upbeat, perfectly performed jazz in the center of a great tradition. It's not surprising because it's simply a consistent dedication to artful music from our friends at Cellar.

Cellar Music Group; 2025; appx. 63 min.

The Dave Robbins Big Band; Happy Faces

It took well over a half century to get this swinging big band a recording. But here they are in 2025 with fourteen tracks recorded in 1963 and 1965! They were based in Vancouver, B.C. And, true to the album's title, I'm sure that they created throngs of happy faces. After all these years, some background is incomplete but that doesn't matter; what DOES is that this band performed well written original material with tight, creative arrangements and generous solo space. For the record, the one standard on the disk is Rodgers and Hart's classic “Spring Is Here”. When one thinks about it, one might realize that this is exceptional big band music that could have been lost to us forever. How nice indeed it is for us to enjoy it after all these years!

Reel to Real Records; 2025; appx. 70 min.

James Zito; Zito's Jump!

There are some players who just “get it right” and in hearing them, one picks up on their excellent musicianship from the first few bars. This is such a group. Led by guitarist James Zito, this octet wails through several original tunes, always swinging and always in charge of making it the real deal throughout. In addition to the outstanding playing on the Zito compositions here, there are a few standards that you surely would know. “The Nearness of You”, “The End Of A Love Affair”, “It Could Happen To You”, and “After You've Gone” bring additional musical joy to this session. Kudos to leader and guitarist Zito for putting together a memorable, solid recording.

James Zito Music; 2025; appx. 42 min.