Tom Rizzo: Day and Night

Origin Records
By Ric Bang
Buy CD: Day and Night

This album is proof-positive of several things:

• Tasty, swinging jazz is alive and well in the Los Angeles/greater West Coast region;

• The artists from that neck of the woods continue to demonstrate that they’re among the best who share the love for this genre; and

• Origin continues to be one of the top distributors that satisfies the souls of true jazz fans.

Guitarist Tom Rizzo produced this release, and his performance truly stands out. He has been heard by millions, due to his membership in several of the bands that have been key to television’s Tonight Show. His basic quartet — pianist Dennis Hamm, bassist David Hughes, and drummer Steve Schaeffer — is the core of the tentet (the “little big band”) that makes this album groove.

Trombonist Dick Lane did all the arrangements; the rest of the brass section includes Bob Summers (trumpet), John Dickson (French horn) and Doug Tornquist (tuba). The reed section features Bob Sheppard (tenor sax) and Jeff Driskill (soprano sax).

The menu is a nice blend of standards and originals: Cole Porter’s “So in Love,” Vincent Youmans’ “Without a Song” and Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” along with up-to-date melodies such as Wayne Shorter’s “Infant Eyes,” Peter Bernstein’s “Little Green Men,” Ornette Coleman’s “Law Years” and Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City.” And if those aren’t enough, we also re-visit “School Days” and “Lonesome Cowboy,” as interpreted by Rizzo.

This a genuinely pleasant jazz journey: danceable, listenable and quite swingable. Bring it home.

Michael Dees: The Dream I Dreamed

Jazzed Media
By Ric Bang
Buy CD: The Dream I Dreamed

I’ve not reviewed a male vocalist for quite some time, but then ages have passed since coming across one as good as Michael Dees. That’s actually a shame, because he has been around for years; Dees is a “stealth” singer with a quite lengthy résumé, but he simply isn’t well known to the public.

Which doesn’t mean that you’ve not been exposed to him, although likely without being aware of it. Dees had a long career as a studio singer. Back in the 1960s, he appeared on TV’s Steve Allen Show; he recorded an album of his own music; he soundtrack work in numerous films, including the TV movies The Rat Pack and The Mystery of Natalie Wood, along with hundreds of commercials and jingles. For the most part, though, he was singing “other people’s songs.”

This release features his own stuff, both lyrics and music. And it’s excellent.

It may be a bit of a stretch to identify Dees as a jazz singer, but if icons such as Frank Sinatra are so classified, then so be it. Dees’ voice is gentle, warm and smooth, and his interpretation is sincere. He means every line he sings, and his inflections and timing are both jazz-related; whether the style is balladic or up-tempo, he swings.

He also recognizes the value of being backed by excellent musicians. The combo that supports him here features pianist Terry Trotter, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Steve Schaeffer, along with Steve Huffsteter and Sal Marquez on trumpet and flugelhorn, Bob Sheppard and Doug Webb on woodwinds, and Don Williams on percussion. The group is truly jazz oriented, and the arrangements of Dees’ 14 tracks give them plenty of room to demonstrates their prowess.

Most of the songs are love-themed ballads; they come across as a possible biographical history of the singer’s life. The “stories” they tell require clear and understandable lyrics, and Dees certainly provides that.

As an “elder citizen” — Dees is in his 70s — he’s on par with the best singers past and present.