Tom Rizzo: Day and Night

Origin Records
By Ric Bang
Buy CD: Day and Night

This album is proof-positive of several things:

• Tasty, swinging jazz is alive and well in the Los Angeles/greater West Coast region;

• The artists from that neck of the woods continue to demonstrate that they’re among the best who share the love for this genre; and

• Origin continues to be one of the top distributors that satisfies the souls of true jazz fans.

Guitarist Tom Rizzo produced this release, and his performance truly stands out. He has been heard by millions, due to his membership in several of the bands that have been key to television’s Tonight Show. His basic quartet — pianist Dennis Hamm, bassist David Hughes, and drummer Steve Schaeffer — is the core of the tentet (the “little big band”) that makes this album groove.

Trombonist Dick Lane did all the arrangements; the rest of the brass section includes Bob Summers (trumpet), John Dickson (French horn) and Doug Tornquist (tuba). The reed section features Bob Sheppard (tenor sax) and Jeff Driskill (soprano sax).

The menu is a nice blend of standards and originals: Cole Porter’s “So in Love,” Vincent Youmans’ “Without a Song” and Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” along with up-to-date melodies such as Wayne Shorter’s “Infant Eyes,” Peter Bernstein’s “Little Green Men,” Ornette Coleman’s “Law Years” and Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City.” And if those aren’t enough, we also re-visit “School Days” and “Lonesome Cowboy,” as interpreted by Rizzo.

This a genuinely pleasant jazz journey: danceable, listenable and quite swingable. Bring it home.