Jerry Bergonzi

Jerry Bergonzi – Extra Extra (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:03 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Savant

Boston doesn’t get enough credit as a jazz town, from the days of the Storyville club and Cambridge-based Transition label to the star factory that is Berklee College of Music, the city stands tall against more celebrated places like Chicago and Detroit. One big part of that high level of creative output is Jerry Bergonzi who, for this date, leads his most Bostonian band in recent memory, reuniting with trumpeter pal Phil Grenadier and drummer Luther Gray. Bassist Harvie S came up from New York for the gig and it was he who suggested guitarist Sheryl Bailey for the album. She completes the Boston connection with her position as the Assistant Chair of Berklee’s legendary Guitar Department.

“To work with Jerry and study and perform his music is the definition of a dream come true,” says Bailey who has played with artists ranging from Ken Peplowski to Shingo Okudaira. Here, Bergonzi has convened a fine band for a compelling album, another feather in Boston’s tricorn hat.

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Jerry Bergonzi – Extra Extra (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 00:50:03 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Jazz, Be Bop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover

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Jerry Bergonzi – The Seven Rays (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 53:56 minutes | 639 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Savant

A fine, high-powered tenor saxophonist with a tone influenced by John Coltrane, a mastery of chord changes, and a strong musical imagination, Jerry Bergonzi has long had an underground following in the Boston area. He started on clarinet when he was eight, switching to alto at 12, and finally to tenor two years later. Bergonzi was inspired early on by Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, and Hank Mobley. He attended Lowell University and after graduation played electric bass in local bands behind singers and strippers, saving up enough money to move to New York in 1972. After struggling in the Big Apple for seven years and gaining some recognition as a member of Two Generations of Brubeck and of the Dave Brubeck Quartet (with whom he appeared on several Concord albums during 1979-1981), Bergonzi moved back to Boston in 1981, where he developed a strong career as both a tenorman and as an educator.
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Jerry Bergonzi – Nearly Blue (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:10:48 minutes | 807 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Savant

A fount of harmonic ingenuity, melodic integrity, and rhythmic authority, Jerry Bergonzi has long been a standard-bearer of sorts for the jazz community. A prolific composer prone to taking deep dives that put serious theory into profound practice, his discography is filled with smart and imaginative originals that twist and turn in unexpected fashion.
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Jerry Bergonzi – Spotlight On Standards (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 1:03:19 minutes | 1,3 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Front Cover | © Savant

There’s an old saying that a great jazz musician never plays a song the same way once. That could certainly be said of Jerry Bergonzi. He is an intellectual artist of uncompromising integrity and a bold, original composer. On Jerry’s new Savant recording he returns to the organ-tenor trio format after a long hiatus from it. From the opening track, Cy Coleman’s “Witchcraft” with its hypnotic organ vamp and “bewitching” chord substitutions Jerry gives to the first 8 bars, you know this isn’t going to be your parents’ organ-tenor gig. Bergonzi and his discmates, Renato Chicco on organ and Andrea Michelutti on drums, take these standards down new harmonic paths and use them as a launching pad for fertile and impressive improvisation. The playing is always intense and distinctive, fresh and spontaneous.

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