Mike Vax & MVJO CD "Alternate Route"
Johnny Adams | "And All That Jazz" | June 29, 2000
Sundays 10am - 1 pm, KNRY Radio 1240
"The Jazz Authority" KIEZ Radio 540
"The Monterey County Post", Monterey, California
Mike Vax is a prodigious gifted trumpeter who apparently is comfortable in just about every area of jazz trumpet and flugelhorn. Certainly he moves through the varying demands of this release on the Sea Breeze label with an ease and strength of invention that is staggering. It all seems to come naturally, the breathe and flower inevitable. The range of his material on this release is broad, ranging from the delicately colored, impressionistic charm of What A Wonderful World through the romping (late) Al Cohn's Music For Dancing.
The thing that initially impresses a listener with his playing is its sureness, the strength that come of knowing one's goals and proceeding directly to them without obliquity or wasted motion (or emotion). Vax plays with blistering fore when it's necessary, but even at the fiercest tempos, there is no shucking when it comes to imagination. Thanks to the unquenchable talent of Vax, the sturdy support of brass, the competent rhythm section, plus the voice of Cami Thompson, this is exciting music. By the way, part of the proceeds from the sale of this release will go to the Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins Memorial Scholarship Fund.
— Johnny Adams
|
Reviews
