JO HARROP THE PATH OF A TEAR Lateralize Records Jo Harrop, vocals/composer; Larry Klein, bass/producer; Anthony Wilson, guitar; Victor Indrizzo, drums/percussion; Jim Cox, piano/Fender Rhodes/Hammond B-3 organ; David Piltch, bass. Here is an artist that immediately snatched my attention with her very first song called “Beautiful Fools.” What a great and unique title! I grabbed […]
Jon Gordon 7th Ave. South ArtistShare Having spent quite a bit of time in NYC in the early to mid-1980s, it’s certainly easy to relate to saxophonist and composer Jon Gordon’s salute to the mecca of jazz in the city at that time, 7th Ave. South. The street was lined with jazz clubs, the venerable […]
NICK FINZER LEGACY: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF J.J. JOHNSON Outside in Music Nick Finzer, trombone; Renee Rosnes, piano; Rufus Reid, bass; Lewis Nash, drums. This latest CD released by trombonist, Nick Finzer is a tribute and centennial celebration to J.J. Johnson. Johnson is considered one of the most influential and pioneering trombonists in jazz history. […]
Gerald McClendon Down At The Juke Joint Delta Roots Records Gerald McClendon is widely known as the “Soulkeeper”. Born and raised in Chicago he began singing along with the music he heard on the radio. His love for music included R&B icons Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding. McClendon’s love for music allows him […]
Toronzo Cannon Shut up and Play Alligator Records Toronzo Cannon was born on Chicago’s southside in 1968. As a youngster he would sit outside Theresa’s Lounge listening to the sounds spilling onto the street. He purchased his first guitar at the age of twenty-two. The blues guitarist’s early influences included Albert Collins and Albert King. […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents an Interview with The Twins of Franklin The Twins of Franklin are not in fact twins, but best friends who fell in love belting show tunes and classical arias together in a dorm room. In the fifteen years since, they still have a lot in common. They’ve both become […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey’s Interview with Trapper Schoepp “What’s most important to me is to be a link in the chain of folks singers before and after my time,” Trapper Schoepp says in light of his forthcoming album, Siren Songs. Recorded at Johnny Cash’s Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, TN, Trapper continues down the trail trod […]
Jason Robinson Ancestral Numbers 1 Playscape Recordings Saxophonist and composer Jason Robinson just released the first part of a comprehensive project tracing the roots and branches of his family tree on Ancestral Numbers 1 with the second part to follow in October. It’s an intriguing concept and one that’s rarely if ever been set to […]
Roger Kellaway Roger Kellaway Live At Mezzrow Cellar Music Group The renowned pianist, composer, and arranger Roger Kellaway mentions in the liners to his live album Roger Kellaway Live At Mezzrow something that makes the utmost sense but rarely mentioned, and at least here, rarely thought about. The pianist has, for the past twenty years, […]
Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp Magical Incantation Soul City Sounds Magical Incantation is astoundingly the nineteenth duo collaboration between Brazilian saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp. The duo began in 1996 with the saxophonist’s Bendito of Santa Cruz. Obviously at this point in their collaborative tenure, they can anticipate the other’s moves like the […]
Cass Clayton Band Midnight in a Bottle Independent This is the new Cass Clayton Band album “Midnight in a Bottle” being released today. The album is divided into two sides. Side A includes five songs opening with “Rear View Mirror” and we get to hear the smoky-sweet vocalist Cass Clayton for the very first time. […]
Kaia Kater Strange Medicine Free Dirt There’s been a buzz on social media lately led by Rhiannon Giddens about the importance of the ‘Black banjo.’ In that sense banjoist Kaia Kater’s Strange Medicine is certainly timely. Beyond that it shows the immense possibilities of the instrument beyond conventional ‘Americana’ or hybrid bluegrass or blues. Consider […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Rick Vito! Grammy-nominated guitarist, singer and producer, Rick Vito is perhaps best known as a member of the legendary supergroup Fleetwood Mac (1987-1991). His guitar work and songs are featured on their albums, “Greatest Hits,” “Behind The Mask,” “The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac,” “The Chain,” […]
AMBER WEEKES A LADY WITH A SONG CELEBRATES NANCY WILSON Amber Inn Records Amber Weekes, vocals; Russell Malone, Andrew Synowiec, Gregory Cook & Paul Jackson Jr., guitar; Tony Campodonico, acoustic & Fender Rhodes piano; Andy Langham, piano; John B. Williams, Carlos Puerto & Jeff Littleton, bass; Fritz Wise, Donald Barrett & Oscar Seaton, drums/percussion; Joey […]
COUNTERMEASURE ORCHESTRAL SESSIONS Independent Label VOCALS: Gianna Antonacci, Nina Brown, Elora Burns, Icarus Devdas, J-M Erlendson, Marla Kishimoto, Qwyn Alexis, Tara Park, Hayley Preziosi, Daniel Boyle, Jeremy Voltz and Aaron Jensen, composer/arranger/lyricist; Charles Cozens, orchestrator/conductor of the Burlington New Millennium Orchestra. An Internationally acclaimed Canadian 12-member vocal group called Countermeasure has released their fourth studio […]
BOB ANDERSON LIVE! Jazz Hang Records Bob Anderson, vocals/composer; Vince Falcone, piano; Joe Lano, guitar. Orchestra In 2015, VHI voted Bob Anderson the #1 celebrity vocal impersonator in the world. This is an honor that People magazine also crowned him with, and Tony Bennett proclaimed, “He does me really well … He does everybody well! […]
Pokey LaFarge Rhumba Country New West Pokey LaFarge has crafted perhaps the best ‘feel good’ album of the year so far with the tongue-in-cheek titled Rhumba Country, a sarcastic jab at trying to conveniently pigeonhole music into defined genres. Here he embraces music from many areas of the globe, including mambo, tropicalia, rocksteady, and early […]
Making a Scene Brings you an interview with “King Me Blues” On their debut album, Your Move, King Me Blues dives headfirst into a vintage aesthetic on multiple fronts to create eight songs that blend a range of blues and blues-rock styles with a definitively modern accent; all executed with just enough precision to keep […]
Jack Walrath Live at Smalls Cellar Music Group Trumpeter, composer, and arranger Jack Walrath joins the legends in the SmallsLive Living Masters Series, leading his long-running conventional jazz quintet in this live gig. This is a group that Walrath has been leading since 2010 – Abraham Burton on tenor saxophone, George Burton on piano, Boris Kozlov on bass, and Donald Edwards on […]
ELENA GILLIAM SHALL WE DANCE Meta Jax Elena Gilliam, vocals; Rob Whitlock, & Michael LeVan, piano; George Gilliam, guitar; Miles Jensen, Nylon string guitar; Lyman Medeiros, bass; Alex Bailey, drums; Ginger Murphy, cello; Sarpay Ozcagatay, flute; Tony Guerrero, fluegelhorn/trumpet/arranger; Arturo Sandoval, trumpet; BUDAPEST SCORING ORCHESTRA: Zoltan Pad, conductor; Balint Sapszon, Orchestra manager. Elena Gilliam has […]
Greensky Bluegrass The Iceland Sessions with Holly Bowling Thirty Tigers Handmade music this multifaceted, fearless, and inspiring, guarantees a listener’s immersion in the experience right along with the players—repeatedly. Greensky Bluegrass, out of Kalamazoo, Michigan 24 years ago, somehow manage to raise their own bar each time they record. Last summer, they took to a […]
Marta Sanchez Trio Perpetual Void Intakt Maybe it was the glut of albums releasing at the same time or not enough focus on the music a couple of weeks ago when Perpetual Void from pianist Marta Sanchez’s Trio was released but Sanchez, a member of David Murray’s new quintet impressed so much on Murray’s recent […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Deb Ryder Born in Chicago Illinois, she began singing at the age of five joining her Dad, crooner Al Swanson on stage at several popular venues and churches in the area. Deb’s musical career began in her early teens when her mother moved the family to […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey’s Interview with The Reverend Shawn Amos Amos was born in New York. He is the youngest son of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie founder Wally Amos and the only son of Shirley Ellis Amos, (professionally known as Shirl-ee May in the early 1960s). Throughout Amos’ childhood and adulthood, his mother suffered from schizoaffective […]
Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens Red Hook Two musicians inextricably linked to Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) pay homage to their favorite places in NYC’s Central Park. Rather remarkable, since it is decades since they first met, this is the […]
Mute After You’ve Gone Endectomorph Music This is the second offering from the Asian-American quartet Mute, who made their debut with their self-titled album in 2019. While they are the essence of postmodern jazz, they make a few nods to tradition on this one, After You’ve Gone, named, of course, for the iconic standard. The […]
Josh Lawrence Measured Response Posi-Tone Trumpeter Josh Lawrence leads the classic jazz quintet configuration of trumpet, tenor, piano. bass, and drums on Measured Response, his sixth album as a leader on Posi-Tone. He has co-led two with the Fresh Cut Orchestra on Ropeadope and has received three Grammy nominations, most notably with Orrin Evans’ Captain […]
Jeff Pitchell Brown Eyed Blues DeGuello Records Jeff Pitchell has recorded with J. Geils, Rick Derringer, Dave Mason, James Cotton, and Clarence Clemons. Jeff received international recognition when he toured Europe and even played with the Commitments. Jeff won “Best Guitarist” in the State of Connecticut when he was 15. Jeff has won two songwriting […]
John Dokes Our Day Swing Theory Entertainment Last year in an interview with female jazz vocalist sensation Samara Joy, Christian McBride playfully asked, ‘where are all the guys?” Since that time but only coincidentally in response to the playful jibe, we’re heard great albums from baritone Paul L. Chambers, Allan Harris, and mainstays Kurt Elling […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Brings you an Interview with Ryan David Green A graduate of Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music, Ryan David Green has performed on four continents, been profiled in Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and twice been named “Best Guitarist” in the Tucson Music Awards (where he currently resides). His original compositions have received numerous film and TV […]
BOBBY SELVAGGIO 11 STORIES, DREAMS, INSPIRATIONS FOR MY BOY Hidden Cinema Records Bobby Selvaggio, alto & soprano saxophone/composer/arranger; Orlando Watson, spoken word; Zaire Darden & James Johnson III, drums; Paul Thompson, bass; Joey Skoch & Theron Brown, piano; Chelsea Selvaggio, vocals. SAXOPHONES: Tony Spicer, tenor saxophone/ bass clarinet; Chris Coles, & John Klayman, tenor; Brad […]
Ian Wardenski Quintet featuring TAMARA TUCKER UNFOLDINGS Independent Label Ian Wardenski, guitar/composer/arranger; Tamara Tucker, vocals; Savino Palumbo, piano; Amy Shook, bass; Frank Russo, drums; Mercedes Beckman, alto saxophone. Ian Wardenski is a guitarist, composer, educator (professor of Music at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD, and Chair of Performing Arts). “Unfoldings” is Wardenski’s third […]
Curtis Salgado Fine By Me Little Village Records This new album by Curtis Salgado has been recorded at eight different studios, four of them in Portland, Oregon; while the remaining four were recorded in California, one each at Taylor Made Studios in Los Angeles; one at Sound Design in Santa Barbara; one at Jesi-Lu Studios […]
Chick Corea and Béla Fleck Remembrance Self-released by Béla Fleck Given that the late Chick Corea’s recording engineer Bernie Kirsh documented nearly every Chick Corea performance live or in the studio, we can expect to hear more from Corea in the future, as we have been since his passing. Yet, the driving force behind this […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Blind Lemon Pledge In 2021, Blind Lemon Pledge (aka Bay Area bluesman James Byfield) released “A Satchel Full of Blues”, an eclectic and wide ranging collection of original American Roots based songs set to a stripped down combo sound with drums, bass, guitar and harmonica. Garnering […]
JP Soars Brick By Brick Little Village Records In February 2009 JP Soars and his band The Red Hots took home first place by winning the International Blues Challenge held annually in Memphis, Tennessee. Soars had released his independently produced album debut “Back Of My Mind” the previous year. In 2011 Soars followed-up with “More […]
Yelena Eckemoff Romance of the Moon L & H Production Pianist and composer Yelena Eckemoff’s 2023 Lonely Man and His Fish was one of the year’s most charming albums, a human-pet story set to music and covered on these pages. Her latest, Romance of the Moon, het twentieth album, may seem different on the surface […]
KENNY BARRON BEYOND THIS PLACE Artwork Records Kenny Barron, piano/composer; Steve Nelson, Vibraphone; Kiyoshi Kitagawa, double bass; Jonathan Blake, drums. Immanuel Wilkins, alto Saxophone. This album opens with one of my favorite Hoagy Carmichael ballads, “The Nearness of You.” It is a beautiful way to start the ‘set.’ On track #2, they play the Barron […]
Little Feat Sam’s Place Hot Tomato Productions / MRI Little Feat’s 55 years have encompassed a colorful mélange of seven configurations, 13 members including nine singers, and six of them principal lead singers. Their music has traversed a spectrum from garage rock and roll to the blues, country, impressionistic jazz, and swamp-drenched and New Orleans-styled […]
Alastair Greene Standing Out Loud Ruf Records This is Alastair Greene’s new album set for release on 5/17. The album was recorded in two separate sessions. The longer Nashville Session was recorded between January 5th and January 9th, 2024 and includes eight songs. Recorded at the House Of Grease in Nashville, the album is co-produced […]
Hakon Skogstad 8 CONCEPTS OF TANGO Ora Fonegram Hakon Skogstad, piano/composer; Andreas Rokseth & Asbjerg Ryeng, bandoneon; Ole Scheyen Sjölin, double bass; Sveinung Lillebjerka & Anders Larsen, violin; Bergmund Waal Skaslien, viola; Marit Aspaas, cello. Hakon Skogstad describes his recent recording release saying: “In 8 Concepts of Tango, I have taken inspiration from Astor Piazzolla’s […]
Zaccai Curtis Cubop Lives! Truth Revolution Pianist and composer Zaccai Curtis, like others with Afro-Cuban heritage, plays in so many different contexts that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the foundation of his style. In the past year, Curtis has been the pianist for rising saxophone star Lakecia Benjamin. In Newport 2019 he was in the […]
Matt “Guitar” Murpny True Blues Brother: The Legacy of Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy Nola Blue Records Matt Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi in December of 1929. He was raised in Memphis and moved to Chicago when he was nineteen. Murphy’s blues career was launched by the early 1950’s and includes working with Howlin’ Wolf, Little […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Until The Sun Until the Sun, a Rocking Blues band, was formed in 2017. Their music includes and often fuses elements of Blues, Alternative Rock, Pink-Floyd-esque Psychedelia, and Jazz. Until the Sun quickly began playing national shows, has opened up for famous Blues and Rock artists, […]
Rick Estrin and the Nightcats The Hits Keep Coming Alligator Records For over thirty years Rick Estrin was the frontman for Little Charlie And The Nightcats. During the time with them he won two Blues Music Awards; Song of The Year and Best Instrumentalist-Harmonica. When Charlie Baty retired from touring in 2008 Estrin re-formed the […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey’s Interview with Jamie Williams and the Roots Collective Jamie Williams and the Roots Collective are Jamie Williams on vocals & rhythm guitar; Dave ‘The Hat’ Milligan on lead guitar; Jake ‘The Dude’ Milligan on Bass & James Bacon on drums. They exist on an imaginary tightrope stretching […]
HOME PAGE Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Teresa Storch Band In 2020 Teresa Storch Band began recording a full length album with drummer Travis Moberg (Sylva, Dang’o) and producer Tony Dickinson, who tours with the rock-arena show Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Initial recordings were done at Chimaera Sound Studios, with overdubs done with current drummer Chris Wright at Cinder Sound Studio. The result is the […]
PSA PSA PSA Records Pritesh Waila, guitar; Sharik Hasan, organ/keyboards/synthesizers; Avery Logan, drums. The title of this album “PSA” is the group name, derived from the first names of each musician. Using the first initial of each member’s name, Pritesh, Sharik, and Avery equals PSA. This is an organ trio that swings hard and was […]
John Minnock A Different Riff: Minnock Sings Shire Dot Time Admittedly, it took time to get to this one, still shaken by vocalist John Minnock’s passing in late February. Yes, A Different Riff: Minnock Sings Shire is unfortunately a posthumous release, his fourth album and his third for Dot Time, having covered the earlier two […]
THE NEW WONDERS STEPPIN’ OUT Turtle Bay Records Mike Davis, cornet/vocals/arranger/bandleader; Ricky Alexander, alto saxophone/clarinet/vocals; Josh Holcomb, trombone; Jared Engel, banjo; Andy Schumm, piano/cornet; Jay Rattman, Bass Saxophone/vocals; Colin Hancock, drums/cornet/vocals. Mike Davis had a dream of putting together a band that celebrated the 1920 jazz scene. He loved the music of Eubie Blake, Louie […]
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