Bill Warfield and the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra Smile

Bill Warfield and the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra
Smile
Planet Arts

 Jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, bandleader, and educator, Bill Warfield, was a student of the late Lew Soloff. After Warfield gave up the trumpet when he lost his front teeth after an auto accident, Soloff became an inspiration. After he heard Soloff's solo on Blood Sweat & Tears recording "Spinning Wheel," Warfield regained the desire to play trumpet again. In addition to playing in various bands, the Baltimore native studied for four years at Towson State with Hank Levy, an arranger for Don Ellis and Stan Kenton.

Moving to New York in 1980, he began subbing in the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, playing and arranging for the Bill Kirchner Nonet, and copying music for Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, and others, as well as earning a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music. He has been teaching since 1987, including stints at Brooklyn College, Towson State University, and the University of North Florida. He joined the faculty at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1996.

Warfield is currently involved in several bands, including the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra, a little big band. Besides Warfield (leader, arranger, trumpet, and flugelhorn), players on this recording are John Eckert (trumpet and flugelhorn), Andrew Gould (alto sax and flute), David Rickenberg (tenor sax, baritone sax, flute, and clarinet), Matt Hong (baritone sax, alto sax, and flute), Blue Lou Marini (tenor sax, soprano sax, flute, and clarinet), Matt Chertkoff (guitar), Cecilia Coleman (piano), Paul Shaffer (Hammond B-3, Fender Rhodes piano), Steve Count (acoustic and electric bass), and Scott Neumann (drums). Jane Stuart is the band's vocalist, with singers Julie Michels and Carolyn Leonhardt, each guesting on one song. Marini and Shaffer are special guests on this recording.

With a mix of what Dave Stryker might call 8-track classics, assorted other songs, and the leader's intriguing originals, Warfield leads a band on a thoroughly engaging and funky program. [The recording is bookended by two versions of “Smile,” one featuring vocalist Michels and the closing one a duet with Shaffer's airy electric piano providing a setting for Warfield's lovely trumpet. ]While there is a superb cover of a Weather Report recording, "Cucumber Summer," Warfield's original "Mad Dog 245" will also evoke the legendary band with its mesmerizing bass riff and Rickenberg's riveting tenor sax solo." Then there is a stone-cold funky rendition of Booker T & the MG's "Hip-Hug-Her," with Hong's down-in-the-alley baritone sax solo, the leader's fiery trumpet, and Shaffer's chicken-fried organ.

Bobby Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" is taken uptown with a marvelous vocal from Stuart and Marini's fervent tenor sax. Stuart also is featured on a cover of the Gladys Knight hit, "I've Got to Use My Imagination." John Eckert contributes the blistering trumpet on this last tune. Carolyn Leonhardt is heard on "Rainbow Connection' from "The Muppet Movie." Pianist Coleman's delicate solo intro leads to a lush horn setting for her captivating vocal.

Arguably the standout track is Warfield's reharmonization of "Theme From Law and Order," with a guitar chorus before Marini's Coltrane-ish soprano sax solo as the band sings a chant based on the "Acknowledgment" section of "A Love Supreme." The chant segues into the band's accompaniment to the climax of Marini's solo before the group restates the theme. It is a sterling performance among the imaginative, first-rate performances heard on "Smile." "Smile" is a superb recording of straight-ahead jazz that should also have considerable appeal to a general listening audience.

I received a review copy from a publicist. Here Bill Warfield and the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra perform "Hip-Hug-Her."

John Colianni I Never Knew

John Colianni
I Never Knew
Patuxent Music

Renowned for his work as accompanist for Mel Tormé and Les Paul among others, pianist Colianni leads a sextet for a swing rooted recording. His prior recordings featured a two guitar quintet but the present sextet is fronted by tenor saxophonists Grant Stewart and John David Simon, with guitarist Matt Chertkoff, bassist Ralph Hamperian and drummer Bernard Linette completing the rhythm section. band Colianni sees this sextet as an offshoot of his big band, the John Colianni Jazz Orchestra. “It’s sort of a band within a band, reflecting my admiration for the Ellington and Goodman small groups." Also the two tenor aspect has its precedent, not simply in Frank Foster and Frank Wess, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Johnny Griffin, and Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt as Rusty Hassan observes in his annotation, but the great Count Basie Band of the thirties and early forties with the contrasting styles of Lester Young and Herschel Evans/Buddy Tate. Stewart and Simon have similar contrasting styles, and both are driving players with an affinity for the blues.

Colianni is a pianist rooted in the Hines-Wilson-Tatum piano lineage, who also displays awareness of more modern harmonic approaches and is a wonderful accompanist on the four originals and four covers that include the opening title number that was memorably performed by Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Basie recorded it for Columbia and two new location recordings from the Famous Door were issued as part of the recent release of materials from the Savory Collection. Colianni's rendition is swinging and the tenor players acquit themselves although they don't match Young nor is the rhythm section quite as propulsive as Basie's legendary one, but it is a swinging small group and the leader displays a deft touch. A Beethoven adaptation, Fur Elise," displays his incorporation of stride piano as well on this clever performance.

"I Didn't Know About You" is a Duke Ellington number that Colianni played behind Tony Bennett and is a lovely composition with a finely developed solo with the tenor saxes adding color. Guitarist Chertkoff gets to shine on a solid blues, "Blues For Naomi" which he observed was a tribute to “a lady who used to watch over us young players cutting our teeth at One Step Down in Washington, DC, where I grew up," and both saxophonists acquit themselves strongly. Illinois Jacquet's "Achtung," is what might be called a barn-burner with the two taking off here as if Lockjaw Davis and Johnny Griffin with Colianni's intro and stride-rooted comping evoking the early Basie.

A competitor in the first Thelonious Monk competition, Colianni and group tackles Monk's "Little Rootie Tootie," which seems taken from the Hal Overton Town Hall Concert arrangement with strong solos from Stewart and Simon before Colianni develops his own, well conceived solo and followed by some fine playing from Chertkoff. If this does not break new grounds, it is a strongly played mainstream small group jazz session that will appeal to many.

I received my review download a publicist. This review appears in the September-October 2018 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 380). Here the John Colianni sextet performs "I Never Knew."