Let’s Play A Blues – 2016
Rossano Sportiello All-Stars
A medium slow blues by some of today’s swing greats
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While many jazz critics and the key jazz magazines tend to emphasize the cutting-edge musicians, they often neglect those who are keeping the tradition alive, artists who do not merely recreate the past but play creatively within earlier styles.
Many of those jazz journalists are probably not familiar with such current-day greats as pianist Rossano Sportiello and tenor-saxophonists Harry Allen and Scott Robinson though they have probably have heard of the very versatile Robinson since he also plays with Maria Schneider’s orchestra and has some very adventurous projects of his own.
With support provided by bassist Frank Tate and drummer Pete Siers at the Cleveland Classic Jazz Party from Sept. 15, 2016, the quintet plays a completely spontaneous blues.
The two tenors ad-lib a melody forthe medium-slow blues, they make creative statements (with Allen going first), Sportiello takes an utterly fascinating solo, and the piece ends with a bit of humor.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald