|
contents | jazz | |||||||||||||
| Towner Galaher NYC CD Release Party Towner Galaher NYC CD release party will take place Friday & Saturday June 22nd & 23rd at Londel's Restaurant. Featuring: Towner Galaher - drums, Matthias Bublath - organ, Marvin Horn - guitar Craig Handy - Tenor sax (Fri night) Mark Shim - tenor sax (Sat night) Debut CD “Panorama” makes # 41 on National Jazz charts. The well traveled drummer finally steps out on his own as a leader and makes the most of it. With 20 years of the Big Apple under his Pacific northwest belt, Galaher is on the one, but he can put the beat where ever he wants it as well. With some first class cats on board to lend a hand, this is a tasty set that's right in the jazz tradition, but there's no dust on it. - Chris Spector Midwest Record Recap Panorama is a testament that straightahead jazz can still thrive in modern times. Drummer/composer Towner Galaher, an astute leader and sideman who has performed with names like Wynton Marsalis and in ensembles such as Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban Jazz Big Band, carries the torch of jazz drummers like Art Blakey. - Mark F. Turner AllAboutJazz Drummer Towner Galaher's self-released debut as a leader serves as an impressive introduction. Recruiting veterans Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano and bassist Charles Fambrough, plus two talented musicians still in their twenties and thirties, trumpeter Maurice Brown and tenor saxophonist Mark Shim, the leader sometimes augments the group with two additional percussionists (Johnny Almendra and Frank Colon). The Latin undercurrent in the band's arrangement of “Have You Met Miss Jones,” the waltz setting of the standard “I'm All Smiles” (with Brown's fine muted horn and Shim's robust tenor sax), along with the sassy opening to Charles Mingus' elegy for Lester Young, “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” shows that Galaher is comfortable trying new approaches to familiar works. The strutting, in-your-face “Charisma” and the lively Latin groove within “East 10th Street” are fine examples of his abilities as a composer/arranger. Expect to hear more from this promising bandleader. - Ken Dryden write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |