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| Waverly Seven at Blue Note The jazz rat pack Waverly Seven rocked two sold out sets at the Blue Note in NYC on Sunday, August 5th. The all-star septet performed new material and selections from their debut album 'Yo! Bobby' (Anzic Records) which Downbeat says, "Keeps Darin's essence in mind but isn't afraid of taking [it] into fresh areas." Eminent jazz historian Ira Gitler was there and surmises, "For too many years we've heard critics give a pass to smooth jazz and rock jazz groups with 'They could point the young audience into real jazz.' It hasn't worked that way but now there's a group called Waverly Seven that can funk it up, hard-bop it and be tenderly romantic. It has solo fire power within strong team play and a natural enthusiasm (spelled s-w-i-n-g) that connects to people across a wide spectrum." The show lit up with the opener "Charade" followed by a newly-written, reggae-tinged, Manuel Valera composition called "The Scelsa Shuffle" named after the host of WFUV's "Idiots Delight" Vin Scelsa. Darin's "Artificial Flowers", "If A Man Answers" and even the cheeky "Splish, Splash" featured intense solos and fleet-fingered acrobatics by all instrumentalists. The septet also took several detours from the Darin songbook. On "If You Talk In Your Sleep" trumpeter Avishai Cohen played into a guitar amp creating Hendrix like riffs while bassist Barak Mori cued Anat Cohen (who played multiple reed instruments throughout the night) for infusing Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" into "I Got A Feeling in My Body". write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |