Hal Galper - Zone: Live At The Yardbird Suite - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Brawny shuffles, swinging horns, searing guitar, passionate vocals and balls-to-the-wall enthusiasm - LIVING BLUES World-renowned, horn-powered, houserocking blues band releases their first new album in five years. Recipients of five Grammy nominations and winners of multiple Blues Music Awards (the Grammy of the blues), plus numerous victories in DownBeat's International Critics Poll, Roomful of Blues are celebrated coast to coast and around the world. They've scanned over 364,000 units, even though their first six releases predated SoundScan. And Roomful of Blues continues to break new ground on Steppin' Out, debuting dynamic new vocalist DD Bastros, the band's first female singer. Roomful's muscular, horn-driven blues and high-voltage live performances have garnered media praise for decades. A hero's welcome is expected throughout blues and roots music press for Steppin' Out. The title will be aggressively promoted to over 700 print and internet media contacts around the world for reviews and features, plus over 1400 radio contacts for regular airplay and specialty show spins. Every gig will be promoted to print, radio and online media as well.Steppin' Out adds powerful, soul-stirring vocalist DD Bastros to the band's potent, impeccable musicianship on an exhilarating mix of jump, swing, proto rock 'n' roll and funky, contemporary blues, including timeless gems first cut by Etta James, Big Mama Thornton, Jimmy McCracklin, Tiny Bradshaw and more. Bastos' and the band's emotional connection to the material is palpable from the first note to the last. Album Tracks 1. Satisfied 2. You Were Wrong 3. Steppin' Up in Class 4. Slippin' and Slidin' 5. Please Don't Leave 6. Tell Me Who 7. You Don't Move Me No More 8. Good Rockin' Daddy 9. Tend to Your Business 10. Well Oh Well 11. Why Don't Cha Stop It 12. I've Got a Feelin' 13. Dirty People 14.

With his focus on 'the art of the trio' since moving on from the Phil Woods Quintet in the late '80s - the last decade incorporating his innovative development of trio 'Rubato' playing into 7 albums on Origin Records - pianist Hal Galper made a major, personal musical statement in adding his old friend and saxophone titan Jerry Bergonzi to a late 2016 tour and live recording. Diving into the 'Rubato' deep end with the trio, Bergonzi provided another dimension and added spark, opening unforeseen avenues to the trio and quickly becoming an integral part of Galper's musical concepts going into the future. Thus, the Hal Galper Quartet, featuring Jerry Bergonzi! Recorded at Cleveland's Tri-C, Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts, the quartet recorded live in an open session with a small but involved audience. Bassist Jeff Johnson contributed much of the music for the tour and four of the tracks for the recording. His tune title InchCubist,Inch provided the implied visual of a subject with many parts out of place or overly-dramatized, offering new perspectives on a familiar image, and a fine metaphor for the music. Inch... a moment of thrilling uncertainty, slightly airborne and stretched out in unusual shapes and motions, and (the moment extended) out for the length of a song, each and every time.Inch - Wondering SoundInch... The high level of integration and communication the trio displays is rare and quite thrilling to experience... Inch - DOWNBEAT Album Tracks 1. Solar 2. Israel 3. Artists 4. Kiwi 5. Cubist 6. Scene West 7. In a Sentimental Mood 8. Scufflin'

(Mike & Randy Brecker) comprised a blistering front line. Galper was in aggressive form, playing with an energy reminiscent of McCoy Tyner, a spirit of embellishment reminiscent of Art Tatum and a harmonic knowledge reminiscent of Bill Evans. Dockery and Moses formed a heart-pounding tandem. - JAZZTIMES. Captured during a pivotal, trailblazing period of his five decade career, pianist Hal Galper had come off the road with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet looking to establish his new working band. Pulling in Michael & Randy Brecker, whom he had recorded & worked with in the early '70s, along with bassist Wayne Dockery and drummer Bob Moses, Galper set up Sunday matinees at NY's Sweet Basil Jazz Club for a year to woodshed the group concept and new compositions. In the studio, 1977's 'Reach Out!' displayed an astonishingly original collective, with all matching Galper's chance-taking, high-spirited, free-wheeling approach to music making. 1979's InchSpeak With a Single VoiceInch captured the energy of the quintet live, but on this 1977 Berlin Jazz Festival performance, the band shifts into an other-worldly overdrive. From the opening salvos of Galper's InchNow Hear This,Inch the mission is defined - jazz giants, in the prime of their youth, set free to blow, pushed to the limits by Galper's facility, full-bodied sound, and fertile imagination.