Russell Malone – Time for the Dancers (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:14 minutes | 1,00 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © HighNote Records
With this, his third outing as a leader on HighNote guitar master Russell Malone returns with his talented quartet, featuring the potent pianism of Rick Germanson, the solid underpinnings of Luke Sellick on bass, and drummer-extraordinaire Willie Jones III. Malone possesses phenomenal technique, a warm luminous tone, an innate sense of swing, and his distinctive chording. The set consists of a wide range of songs including funk, ballads, uptempo hard bop performances and even a pop tune and a TV theme. Malone varies the instrumental textures and tone colors throughout to reveal his considerable inventive melodic art. This latest recording is further proof that Russell Malone is one of the top guitarists in jazz, here backed by his superb trio of masterful musicians.
Read more
Russell Malone – All About Melody (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:25 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © HighNote Records
A lot of guitarists come in and out of LA for gig. One of the few guys I’ll make a point to see no matter what is Russell Malone. As the title of this latest album with Rick Germanson/p, Luke Sellick/b and Willie Jones III/dr states, Malone’s all about melody (as well as swing), even in the most adventurous of solos. Here, the songs are fairly concise, with a slinky bop take of Freddie Hubbard’s “One The Real Side” and a nimble “Jive Hoot” pulsating like a V8 engine. His art of using space is like Monet on “Haunted Heart” and the delicate “Message to Jim Hall.” Jones supplies velvet brushes on the cozy read of the soul hit “Saving All My Love For You” while he does a nice groove with Sellick on the hip “Nice Lady”. Malone does a couple solo arias as well, making silence a sound on “When A Man Loves A Woman” and being as delicate as handling a newborn on “He’s Gone Away”. You could take years studying this session, and keep learning things.
Read more
Ray Brown, Monty Alexander, Russell Malone – Ray Brown, Monty Alexander, Russell Malone (2002)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 59:10 minutes | Scans included | 3,47 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,01 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound | Telarc # SACD-63562 | Genre: Jazz
It would be nice to say that Ray Brown’s final recording session before his sudden and untimely death in the summer of 2002 resulted in a masterpiece, but although this trio session with guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Monty Alexander is perfectly serviceable, a masterpiece it is not. It’s a very attractive album — Brown was probably not capable of producing anything less as a leader — but it suffers just a bit from Alexander’s slightly sugary style and from the lack of a drummer. Recording without a drummer had been the latest thing in the jazz world for several years when this album was released, but it’s not entirely clear what the benefit of such an arrangement was supposed to be. On this album, the swing standard “Fly Me to the Moon” and Dexter Gordon’s boppish “Dexter’s Dex” would have had much more oomph with a sympathetic drummer on board (though on the latter, Malone’s Django Reinhardt-styled backup and Brown’s inimitable freight train rhythmic drive do go some distance toward making up for that lack). And the mid-tempo numbers seem to plod just a bit as well. But as always, there’s no questioning either the inventiveness of Brown’s solos or the rich sumptuousness of his enormous tone.
Read more