review
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Rippingtons Interview and Review
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Shannon West recently interviewed Rippingtons main man Russ Freeman at the SmoothViews site. Check out Freeman’s thoughts on composing, painting, balancing new songs with the classics when touring, what may be his favorite saxophone performance on a Rippingtons recording, and more. Shannon also reviewed the new Rippingtons recording Modern Art, saying “these are tight, short,…
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Review: Chris Standring – Love & Paragraphs
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Acid jazz was the hip new style taking the States by storm in the 90s. While much of it was created by producers and deejays from abroad, two west coast musicians decided to tackle the genre themselves by fusing jazz melodies with hip hop stylings on the release Solar System (1996). The musicians responsible for…
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Review: Dianne Reeves – Christmas Time Is Here
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I’ve always thought jazz is the best genre for Christmas music. The intimacy of the jazz trio especially can make for some of the most enjoyable music of the holiday season. Multi-Grammy winning vocalist Dianne Reeves proves this on her first seasonal recording Christmas Time Is Here. With the exception of a small number of…
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Review: timeagain from David Sanborn
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It’s been over four years since David Sanborn released a solo recording. That was Inside, a CD that stretched across different styles and sounds. It felt like Sanborn was restless. He’s easily distanced himself from the pop-jazz style that he was known for with his 1990s releases Another Hand and the superfunk of upfront and…
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Review: Standard of Language from Kenny Garrett
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Man, Kenny Garrett really smokes on that alto sax. He can burn like few other saxophonists. If that wasn’t known before, you’ll know it after hearing his latest release, Standard of Language. Standard of Language picks up right where his previous release, the excellent Happy People, left off. In fact, five of CD’s nine tracks…