Bman's Blues Report

 I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, East By Midwest , by Charlie Ballantine and it's great! Opening with Storyteller , a lush, instrumental ballad, Charlie Ballantine on guitar crafts a beautiful melody, saturated with reverb and tone. Joined by Quinn Sternberg who's bass work is active and Dan Weiss on drums who keeps it light but effective makes for a brilliant opener. Monk's, T rinkle Tinkle , has real forward thrust with nimble fingered fretwork and perfectly laid chords by Ballantine illustrating the melody and and neatly styled bottom by Sternberg and Weiss keeping your head bopping. A real tasty solo by Sternberg really does play nicely against the classic structure. Lennon (and McCartney's) Strawberry Fields is a nice surprise with Ballantine playing it's straightforward melody with a bit of overdrive but with some really nice surprise counter notes giving the track a new and quite interesting feel. There's also a surprise ...

Billy Cobham - Drums George Duke - Keyboards, Vocals John Scofield - Guitar Alphonso Johnson - Bass, Chapman Stick, Vocals George Duke (born January 12, 1946 in San Rafael, California) is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music. He first made a name for himself with the album The Jean-Luc Ponty Experience with the George Duke Trio. He is known primarily for thirty-odd solo albums as well as for his collaborations with other musicians, particularly Frank Zappa. Duke attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley before earning a bachelor's degree in trombone and composition with a minor in contrabass, from the San Francisco Conservatory in 1967. Playing initially with friends from garages to local clubs, Duke quickly eased his way into session...