Seattle Jazz Scene

Doug Miller‘s new CD, Regeneration, was just reviewed on All About Jazz.com.

Miller’s bass playing is featured prominently throughout with arco and pizzicato soloing. It is his unaccompanied bass reading of “Bye Bye Blackbird,” however, that really sums up what his playing is all about: no-nonsense, punchy and swinging. The influence of heavy hitter’s like bassists Ray Brown and John Clayton is made obvious through nicely-phrased blues licks, double stops and chords.

This music is both interesting and fun. Miller and company come across as a strong, like-minded unit.

Click here to read the complete review.

by Andrew Hamlin, Seattle Sound Magazine

Seattle-based jazz pianist and singer Dawn Clement’s back with a new album, Break. I just hope she doesn’t wait another five years between albums. I reviewed Hush, her debut as a leader, back in 2003, remarking that she “eloquently shares space with her bandmates … but her solo excursions show her capable of emulating a whole band, condensing, expanding, and rippling lines on her right side and mining new rhythms on her left.” She’s still all that, but “that” now absorbs and emanates a thicker multiverse.

At the keys she so often, so confidently, sprints up a scale, drops down a few steps like playing hide and seek, and finally pirouettes around the top of the previous figure. She musters an expressive muddle in the middle of “Distant Oasis,” then strides rightly out like a kid through the mud. The opener, Jerome Kern’s “I’ve Told Every Star,” stops and goes through “I Got Rhythm” figures, leaving her pulling and pushing at the time.

Click here to read the full review

From AllAboutJazz.com by John Barron

Legendary west coast saxophonist Hadley Caliman made his mark by touring and recording with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson and Santana. For Gratitude, his first recording as a leader in three decades, Caliman is joined by vibist Joe Locke, bassist Phil Sparks, drummer Joe LaBarbera and trumpeter Thomas Marriott, who also produced the recording.

The disc opens with Marriott’s “Back For More,” a 6/8 minor blues. The simplistic, captivating theme and energetic groove sets the stage for a session full of unrelenting energy. Well into his seventies, Caliman holds his own with his somewhat younger crew, playing with the confidence and inventiveness of someone half his age. The veteran weaves through the Kurt Weill obscurity “This Is New” with sophisticated playfulness and soars gracefully on his own Afro-Cuban-inspired burner “Comencio.”

“Linda,” Caliman’s meditative tribute to his wife, is reminiscent of John Coltrane’s “Naima” with its hauntingly sparse theme and bass pedal-tones. Locke’s out-of-time floating behind the melody is satisfyingly hypnotic.

Things really start to cook by the time Joe Henderson’s “If” is introduced. Supported by Sparks’ rock-solid walking pulse, Marriott, Caliman and Locke blow through the angular blues form with imaginative vigor, setting up raucous twelve-bar exchanges with LaBarbera. On “Joe Joe Dancer Bossa Nova,” another Caliman original, Marriott tips his hat to Hubbard with crackling lyricism.

Gratitude is an exceptional comeback for an unsung maverick of modern jazz. Hopefully the next one doesn’t take thirty years.

By John Barron, All About Jazz.com

Crazy: The Music of Willie Nelson goes above and beyond the confines of mere adulation for an American music icon. Seattle-based trumpeter Thomas Marriott creates a conceptual sonic flow, harnessing energy from the melodic and rhythmic legacy of some of Nelson’s well known and not-so-well-known gems. For the bulk of the session Marriott is supported by a stellar crew of like-minded risk takers, including saxophonist Mark Taylor, keyboardist Ryan Burns, bassist Geoff Harper and drummer Matt Jorgensen.

The disc traverses a musical landscape full of twists and turns, moving ever-so-smoothly from techno- based grooves (“Phases & Stages, Circles & Cycles”), to 1970s-era fusion explorations (“Write Your Own Songs,” “You Wouldn’t Cross the Street”), to straight-ahead blowing (“I’m Building Heartaches”). Tracks like “Everywhere I Go” and “Crazy” are comparatively clear-cut, adhering to the accessible nature of Nelson’s gorgeous melodies.

An emphasis on melody seems to be Marriott’s top priority throughout the disc’s eleven tracks. The trumpeter’s warm-tone and exuberance breathes life into simple, yet sumptuous themes such as “The Great Divide” and “On the Road Again.” An exciting soloist, Marriott’s improvised dueling with Taylor’s soprano saxophone on “I’m Building Heartaches” stands out as a disc highlight.

Jorgensen and Harper keep things grounded while maintaining a loose, open-ended rapport with each groove. Burns snakes his way through the disc with inventive soloing and distorted synth clusters. His out-of- left-field accompaniment on the second half of “Crazy” is worth the price of admission. Guest keyboardist Wayne Horwitz creates an electronic frenzy on the Weather Report-influenced “Write Your Own Songs”—the groove is practically a carbon copy of Joe Zawinul’s “Black Market.”

The music from this session may be hard to categorize, but the same can be said of Nelson. The eclectic nature of the iconic singer/songwriter’s catalogue lends itself surprisingly well to Marriott’s liberal approach.

Click here to buy this CD