Café Jazz Radio - Canada's Smooth Jazz Connection
The Magic 8 Ball Edition!
This Week at CaféJazz.ca

November 13th, 2011
Edition #633 PreviouslyThis Week at Café Jazz.ca - Edition #632 Next

Listen to Café Jazz Radio | Show Notes | Program Profile | Contact Information
Hot Links to Cool Cats | Cool Links | This Week | Music Den | Favourites (Most Played)


This Week at The Café:
... on this edition Rob Tardik is featured with Balance.Energy.Laughter.Love. as the showcase release. In the second half, we're turning back the hands of time for another exciting Vintage Collection - this installment is highlighted by the legendary Wes Montgomery and by the combo Young-Holt Unlimited, both with music from the 60s. Also included is a Pharoah Sanders track from the 70s while rounding it out are a pair of more recent release by Attila Molnar and John Costello from the 00s. So the stage is set, the sound check is complete and we're rarin' to roll with Acoustic Alchemy and The Ebor Sound System!
In This Issue:

SHOWCASE CD :
B.E.L.L - Rob Tardik

VINTAGE COLLECTION:
Soulful Strut - Young-Holt Unlimited
Oceans of Sand - John Costello
Astral Traveling - Pharoah Sanders
California Nights - Wes Montgomery
The Best - Attila Molnar

AFTER HOURS : Take Five
PLAYLIST: Playlist for Ed#633

Back to Top

Showcase CD
Balance.Energy.Laughter.Love - Rob Tardik:

In a near two-decade career, Toronto-native Rob Tardik has established himself as one of the real rising stars in the smooth arena. He was awarded a music scholarship in high school and then went on to study at York University while earning diplomas in Record Engineering and Media Arts. For several years, Rob has worked as a guitar product specialist for Roland Canada while for the past dozen or so years he's edified many an aspiring young musician at the Merriam School of Music. In 2006, Tardik released his debut, and for 5 years he performed at the prestigious Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. In 2010, it was Tardik's turn, and he won CSJA guitarist of the year honours for his sophomore cd. Hot on the heels his Canadian smoothie comes Rob's latest effort entitled Balance.Energy.Laughter.Love and what has become his mantra in life. Enlisting the guitar aid of Grammy winning producer Paul Brown, as well as some high caliber Canadian talent in the likes of Warren Hill, Gabriel Mark Hasselbach, and Don Breithaupt, the chimes are pealing for a project that Tardik has nick-named B.E.L.L.


Rob Tardik - Balance.Energy.Laughter.Love
Rob Tardik Rob Tardik
Others contributing to the disc are Darren Rahn, Jaared, and Carson Freeman, who split sax duties on the remaining tracks. Three songs each out of the album's twelve were crafted to fit into one of four categories as spelled out by the album title and as we direct our show case spotlight at Rob and B.E.L.L. we have three of those represented on the show today. From the Laughter section of the disc we're starting with the track Sunday Morning and this one features the sax of Warren Hill. Our absolute favourite is from the Love section; it's the gorgeous Midnight Blue with Gabriel on trumpet and Breithaupt on keys. Meanwhile it's the Balance component that yields the show closer, it's the playfully titled East Meets Wes with Paul Brown and it was the first single from the disc. For years Tardik's formula for success in life has been one of balance, energy, laughter, and love. As in life, so it now is in music with Rob Tardik and his cd B.E.L.L. ringing loud and clear!

CD: Balance.Energy.Laughter.Love (2011)
Label: Guitardik Music
Links:

Back to Top
Vintage Collection: Part One
Young-Holt Unlimited - Soulful Strut
Soulful Strut - Young-Holt Unlimited:
A project from the late 60s, the combo Young-Holt Unlimited was led by Eldee Young on bass and Isaac Holt on drums. The two had been former members of the Ramsey Lewis jazz trio when in 1966 they started their own self-named trio. In 1968, they revamped their line-up and released Soulful Strut their debut as Young-Holt Unlimited. The project featured the title track single, an instrumental take on the Barbara Acklin hit Am I the Same Girl, which went on to became a million seller!

LP: Soulful Strut (1968)
Label: Brunswick Records
Links:
Eldee Young: 1936 - 2007
John Costello - Shaft: Music From The Soundtrack
Oceans of Sand - John Costello:
John Costello is a Chicago native who has been based in Phoenix Arizona, since moving there with his mother as a teen back in the 80s. Over the years, he's become established as a composer, producer, musician, and record label exec. From scoring for film and TV to producing and recording, Costello also operates as president of Wild Whirled Music, Fervor Records, and Muzik Headz. From Costello's own A Cooler Shade of Jazz and music that's been featured on shows such as Law & Order, Malcolm In The Middle, and Good Morning America, we've selected the sometimes fluid, sometimes granular Oceans of Sand with Greg Anderson on guitar!

CD: A Cooler Shade of Jazz (2006)
Label: Fervor Records
Links:

Back to Top
Vintage Collection: Part Two
Pharoah Sanders - Thembi
Astral Traveling - Pharoah Sanders:
Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders emerged from the groups of John Coltrane in the mid-60s, where he was became well known for the serious aggression of his playing. Raised in a musical family in Little Rock Arkansas, in the late 50s, Pharoah attended Oakland Junior College in the San Francisco Bay Area where he began playing bebop, rhythm & blues, and free jazz with many of the region's finest musicians. In 1961, he moved to New York and as a struggling musician, he pawned his horn for a time and would occasionally even sleep on the subway. During this period he played with luminaries such as Sun Ra; it was in fact Sun Ra who dubbed him Pharaoh, a twist on the title of ancient Egyptian kings and his given name of Ferrell. Notwithstanding, the raw emotion he exhibited early in his career, Sanders' tone was always harmonically rich and, in the years after Coltrane's death, he explored some gentler avenues in jazz … a case in point, the spacey Astral Traveling from 1971!

LP: Thembi (1971)
Label: Universal Distribution
Links:
Wes Montgomery - A Day in the Life
California Nights - Wes Montgomery:
The importance of Wes Montgomery in bringing jazz to the masses cannot be underestimated! He was simply one of the most influential jazz guitarists to have ever lived and his style has inspired generations of players. Montgomery was self-taught and didn't start to play guitar until 1943 at the rather late age of 19. Perhaps that's why he used his thumb rather than a pick and why he incorporated the use of octaves in his music. Montgomery's talent led him to a 2-year touring gig with Lionel Hampton in 1948 but for most of the next decade, he worked in relative obscurity in his hometown of Indianapolis. Most evenings were spent playing at local clubs while a day job helped to pay the rent. Towards the end of the 50s, Wes recorded with his brothers, Buddy and Monk, and with organist Melvin Rhyne but it was the release of his 1960 debut, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery that made him famous the jazz world over.
During the final years of his life, Montgomery enjoyed great commercial success - during 1967-1968 he recorded three best-selling albums based on pop melodies that received air play on AM radio. Unfortunately, Montgomery succumbed to a heart attack in 1968 while at the height of his success - he was only 45. From 1967 and from one of his final studio project, we have California Nights and a tune that had been recorded by Lesley Gore that same year.

LP: A Day in the Life (1967)
Label: A&M Records
Links:
Wes Montgomery: 1923 - 1968
Attila Molnar - Dreams
The Best - Attila Molnar:
Since his 1997 move from the stately capital of Hungary to Washington DC, the capital of the United States, Attila Molnar's rise is the stuff that Dreams are made of. As a boy, he was trained in modern classical music but graduated as a jazz pianist. For a couple of years he played with a 4-piece combo called Happy Family but by 1992 he'd already formed his own group. It took eight years to get his green card but in the meantime Molnar was already well-connected in the DC-area. He played keys in Jaared's touring band and performed with him in the UK and at the Dubai International Jazz Festival - in 2010, the latter proved a coming out party for the former bopper from Budapest as he was one of the featured performers. Having also played with Slim Man, Tim Bowman, Marion Meadows, and most recently with Peter White at The Pizza Express in London, Molnar released his debut in 2009.
For a variety of reasons, the project never really received the promotional push that it deserved. Air play was limited but with a new album in the works and with a couple of years more seasoning under his belt, Molnar's future now appears limitless. Indeed the best is yet come and from that initial release, we have Attila with a tune which no doubt alludes to that very fact!

CD: Dreams (2009)
Label: Attimusic
Links:

Back to Top

After Hours ~ Exclusive to our Site and Select Affiliates :
Take Five: Contrary to the title of the segment, this is take two in our cover tune series. All the selections are cover tunes taken from pop or jazz or from somewhere in between. We have 14 tracks and these include Crystal Blue Persuasion by Jill Jenson, Greg Adams with Smooth Operator, and Fields of Gold by Tommy Emmanuel. We're calling the feature Take Five after a read on the Dave Brubeck classic by Acoustic Alchemy, and to the best of our knowledge, this is the only cover the Alchemy gang ever recorded. So, from the cd Reference Point, it's Greg Carmichael and the late Nick Webb with the tune that gave its name to this edition! Playlist for Ed#633

Back to Top

Listen to Café Jazz Radio Listen to Café Jazz Radio | Show Notes Show Notes / This Week at Café Jazz Archive | Program Profile Program Profile | Contact Information Contact Info
Hot Links to Cool CatsArtist Links | Cool Links Cool Links| This Week This Week@Café Jazz.ca | Music Den The Music Den / Playlists and More | Favourites (Most Played) Café Jazz Favourites
© 2011 Jazz Lynx / Café Jazz Radio