Some fun facts about this track: 1. “East St. Louis Toodle-oo” is the only Steely Dan track in which Becker and Fagen are not in the songwriting credits. This one was written about fifty years earlier by Duke Ellington and his trumpet player, Bubber Miley. You May Also Like: FiveRead More

Stan Killian’s Unified is an attractive album right from the first listen. Actually, even before that first listen. Checking out the names of horn players playing alongside Killian listed on the back cover of the CD case, I saw there was already a recipe for success You May Also Like:Read More

André Vasconscellos is, like Leonardo E.M. Cioglia, a forward thinking acoustic bassist and composer from Brazil. 2 is, you guessed it, his second album, but the first one released in the U.S. Heading up a five or six piece band (depending on whether Torcuato Mariano’s guitar is included), Vasconscellos leadsRead More

The young man pictured on the CD cover looks barely out of his teens and in fact it’s the picture of a twenty-year-old Bryan Carter, and drummer and composer out of Chicago and a junior a Juilliard at the time of the album’s recording last December. But everything else aboutRead More

Eugene Marlow’s Heritage Ensemble’s follow-up to last year’s Celebrations CD is also its predecessor. Let me explain. Marlow’s first Heritage Ensemble record, Making The Music Our Own (2006) was Marlow’s first stab at making a record of modern, multicultural takes on old Hebraic (Jewish) music. Since that album was recorded,Read More

If you’re a jazz fan in the Houston, Texas, area, you’ve surely heard of saxophonist Woody Witt. A tireless music educator around town, the manager and artistic director of one of Houston’s few jazz clubs, and a recording artist in his own right, Witt has a long list of credentialsRead More

Bill Cole, a multicultural multi-instrumentalist, is one of the guys at the top of the hierarchy in the improvised music scene, having been at it in earnest since at least the late 70s. You May Also Like: No related posts.

The popular line about “Barrytown” is that this is a song disparaging the Unification Church members and followers of its leader, Sun Myung Moon, or “moonies You May Also Like: Walter Becker, “Hard Up Case (Live at Slim’s 1995)” (2024): Steely Dan Sunday Walter Becker, “He Wants You (Out)” (1997):Read More

You’d think that a guy who possess impeccable tone and technique on the alto sax, has starred in the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band, has led solid straight ahead records of his own for almost 25 years would be a household name in jazz circles. YouRead More

Pianist Vincent Lyn puts a groove into Oliver Nelson’s classic lead-off number from his Blues And The Abstract Truth masterwork. You May Also Like: Vincent Meissner Trio, “Young Folks” from ‘Wille’ (2023): One Track Mind Joe Sofra, “One of Those Things” (2020): One Track Mind