by Mark Saleski There are so many things we depend upon in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire that it’s sometimes easy to forget that not all of them have been around forever…or will continue to be so. Just as the mountain itself solidly anchors our mental picture of theRead More

by Nick DeRiso A group of cross-country friends with day jobs got together to produce Rochester Express, this chummy, Woody Herman-style amalgam of galloping jazz joys. By day, the members of Rochester, Minnesota-based TakeTwo work as a cardiovascular surgeon, a respiratory therapist, and an IBM engineer. In this two dayRead More

by Nick DeRiso The Orb’s signature sound — gorgeous but not quite ambient, hypnotic but typically not much more rhythmic than a chill-out room — always seemed to cry out for the guitar stylings of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. The band copped to the underlying influence on its debut album,Read More

Photo: Raj Naik by Pico Millions of people know him as an affable, guitar-wielding long-time bandleader of the most popular late night show in television history. Now that Kevin Eubanks has left his eighteen year stint as Jay Leno’s  musician sidekick on The Tonight Show, it’s time to become acquaintedRead More

by Nick DeRiso An album about dreams reclaimed, Murray Flint’s The Journey traces his own road back from painfully debilitating tendonitis. After nearly a decade away from the guitar, the Olympia, Wash., resident discovered a finger-style approach long associated with Merle Travis. This technique simultaneously sounds more complex, since theRead More

by S. Victor Aaron After all the whack jazz winners I’ve heard from Engine Studios, I’ve come to expect nothing but excellence whenever I pop in a CD from that label for the first time, and I’ve yet to be disappointed. Label head and producer Steven Walcott signs up creative,Read More

by S. Victor Aaron “Catalyst” is not just the name of the album, it’s also the name of the band sax/flute player King leads, and this is their debut album. This band which features King, Luis Deniz (saxes), David Braid (piano and keyboards), Rich Brown (bass), Joel Haynes (drums), haveRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Even on an ode to a fallen friend (“Portrait Of Leroy Jenkins”) and the chromatic ballad (“My Wish”) they pour on the intensity, but get downright giddy on harder tunes like “Hot Crab Pot,” a song that boils over with as much intensity as the titleRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Here we are at Volume 6, and while there’s still a few dozen CD’s that are worthy of mention sitting on my shelves or lying somewhere on the floor, this is likely going to be the last installment of “Pico’s 2010 Stacks.” A post-Thanksgiving version coveringRead More

by S. Victor Aaron So often in recent years we’ve heard jazz played in a traditional Jewish style, aka “Klezmer” jazz. Arranger/composer and keyboardist Eugene Marlow puts this idea in reverse: taking traditional Jewish songs and playing them in mainstream, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and even contemporary jazz styles. The second HeritageRead More