Category Archives: Previews

An Evening with Bobby Shew and the NM Philharmonic

Bobby Shew

Bobby Shew. Photo by Victoria Rogers.

Internationally renowned trumpeter, Albuquerque native, and Corrales resident Bobby Shew will be front and center Saturday evening, backed by the sterling rhythm section of pianist Jim Ahrend, bassist Colin Deuble, drummer Cal Haines—and the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra—in a concert that will reprise the material on Shew’s favorite album of his, Metropole Orchestra. The album features 10 tracks, including 8 standards, an original by Shew, and an original written for him by Lex Jasper, who arranged all the tunes on the album.

The Metropole Orchestra, founded in 1945 and based in the Netherlands, has held a lofty position in the European jazz world for over 70 years. The New Mexico Philharmonic will play the Metropole’s original arrangements.

I had the opportunity to chat with Bobby—no disrespect intended; he’s my neighbor, and everybody here calls him Bobby, and when I type “Shew,” I’m wondering who that is—about the album, the concert, and how he once jumped off a 35-foot windmill with a surplus parachute, and lived to tell about it. Continue reading →

Bert Dalton’s Brazil Project Presents a ‘Manfredo Fest’-ival

Brazil Project (left to right): John Bartlit, Patty Stephens, Rob “Milo” Jaramillo, Frank Leto, and Bert Dalton

Brazil Project (left to right): John Bartlit, Patty Stephens, Rob “Milo” Jaramillo, Frank Leto, and Bert Dalton

Pianist Bert Dalton’s Brazil Project is on a mission: to make the music of Brazilian composer/
pianist Manfredo Fest more widely known and appreciated. Dalton first crossed paths with the late Fest (1936–1999), one of the innovators of the bossa nova movement in the late 1950s, more than 30 years ago. He was immediately and permanently smitten with Fest’s energetic music. He’s played it ever since, wanting to expose a wider audience to its seamless blending of bop influences and Brazilian pulse.

For this special mission, Dalton is augmenting his Brazil Project personnel—Patty Stephens
(vocals), Rob “Milo” Jaramillo (bass), John Bartlit (drums), and Frank Leto (percussion)—with Ali Ryerson, one of the world’s top jazz flutists, and Phill Fest, son of Manfredo and a guitarist whose albums place high on the jazz charts. The septet will present three concerts titled “Dig This Samba!” this week—in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and El Paso—with the El Paso concert being recorded live for an upcoming album. Continue reading →

Greg Ruggiero: Home at Last

GUITARIST RETURNS HOME WITH LYRICAL TRIO

Michael Kanan, Neal Miner, Greg Ruggiero

Michael Kanan, Neal Miner, Greg Ruggiero

When guitarist Greg Ruggiero appears at the Outpost this week, coming in from Brooklyn with the Greg Ruggiero, Neal Miner, Michael Kanan Trio, it will be a homecoming for the former
Albuquerquean. More important, though, Ruggiero will be giving a tour of the new musical home he’s been building over the last few years. Continue reading →

Singer/Songwriter Jimmy Fong Bridges Cultures, with Help from John Denver

OCT. 17 CONCERT BENEFITS ERIC LARSEN ENDOWMENT AT UNM

Gig Photo 1 Growing up in Penang, Malaysia, in the ’60s, singer/songwriter Jimmy Fong encountered
popular Western music on the radio, thanks to a nearby Australian air base and a steady flow of Americans on R&R from Vietnam. The songs of one artist, in particular, captured Fong’s ear: John Denver.

Fong’s fascination with this native New Mexican (Roswell; December 31, 1943) put him on a
musical path that has made him a popular entertainer in Australia, where he now lives, and the Far East. That path led to a meeting with his idol when Denver toured through Malaysia, and it is bringing him to Albuquerque, where he will share his story in a multimedia concert titled “My Time with John Denver,” backed by the award-winning local band Breaking Blue. Proceeds from the event, sponsored by ListenABQ and the New Mexico Music Awards, will benefit the Eric Larsen Endowment at UNM, which offers scholarships to students who have declared music or the recorded arts as their major. Continue reading →

Finding the Real in the Weird

FABIO_ALBUM_COVERFloozy, His Name Is Fabio (Flophouse Records)
A Review

On their second release, His Name Is Fabio (Flophouse Records), the trio Floozy—
Bronson Elliot (acoustic guitar, accordion,
vocals), Tanya Nuñez (bass, background
vocals), and Lauren Addario (drums)—
continues their exploration of the truly weird corners of the human heart. The subjects of most of their tightly focused songs—a bird on a wire; a murderer; a desperado; unfulfilled obsessives, one knee-deep in baby diapers and another armed with plastic cups and a highway overpass; an uncertain lover, a long-suffering friend—are warped, and so are the songs. Lyrics are crammed into tight spaces. Line breaks fall midword. Odd rhythmic patterns and chord
progressions and a complete disregard for genre—you’ll find rock, folk, classical, punk, tango, and pop—defy a listener’s expectations.

In short, these songs break the rules, and that’s why they work. With broken rules and minimal instrumentation—made possible by Nuñez’s edgy, expressive bass—Floozy has developed a compelling signature sound, creating evocative musical settings. What’s more, their warped, wounded, and weird subjects open real insights into the human heart that apply, sometimes uncomfortably, to all of us normal people. Continue reading →