Recent Recordings by Area Jazz Artists
The constellation of musicians swirling around Planet D regularly performs in various combinations throughout our area. In addition to working with the full nonet, they often perform on a regular basis in smaller units, including one co-led by trombonist and singer John “Tbone” Paxton and percussionist RJ Spangler. This Paxton Spangler Band, a quintet with guitarist Matt LoRusso, bassist Trevor Lamb and drummer Sean Perlmutter, is now featured on Trick Bag, augmented by saxophonist Alex Colista on alto and tenor saxophones, and on four tunes additionally by baritone saxophonist Goode Wyche III and trumpeter Charlie Miller, with arrangements by Jeff Cuny.
This is Planet D’s meat and potatoes music, head moving and toe tapping stuff of the highest order, a mixture of jazz, blues, funk, and even a smidge of calypso. The repertoire will be familiar to many but hardly overplayed, bringing back memories; the perfect groove for a club, bar, or restaurant setting.
The recital is set up by an energetic rendering of Earl King’s “Trick Bag,” with Paxton really feeling the lyrics, and LoRusso and Colista doing their laid-back blues thing. We move on to some laid-back funk from the Jazz Crusaders, “Way Back Home,” with lovely smooth trombone, guitar, and saxophone solos, and then the tempo goes way up for another funk tune “Jan Jan,” from the Fabulous Counts book, that opens with Wyche really hot on an extended bari sax outing, followed by well-matched guitar and alto sax statements and great riffing from the whole band. Things calm down as Paxton wistfully sings Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo,” from his film The Harder They Come. Cuny cleverly adapted the original arrangement for a very different ensemble, keeping the lilting rhythm and the textures, while asserting the jazz feeling of the Midwestern band and Paxon blows a lovely solo that begins with appropriate lyricism and then touches on the blues. Listening to this, one is struck by how his singing and horn playing are deep extensions of each other, as was the case with another great trombonist/vocalist Jack Teagarden from a different era. After two more tunes, the band has a nice party on Matt LoRusso’s funky “Rouge Dispensary,” the one original here, featuring the composer guitarist.
The recital may be short, designed for an old-fashioned long-playing record, but the judicious choice of tunes, Cuny’s arrangements, and the uniformly apposite solo work create a well-formed unity adapting well-known recorded tunes. Throughout, the band makes them their own with a nice nod to the original arrangements, making this a joy for the listener to hear.