Nights at the Turntable September 2016

TWO RELEASES FROM KRIS TOKARSKI AND HAL SMITH A superior up-and-coming jazz pianist, Kris Tokarski is developing his own style which includes aspects of Jelly Roll Morton, Teddy Wilson, and the top stride pianists. A pair of very different trio albums team him with drummer Hal Smith and either cornetist-clarinetist Andy Schumm or bassist Cassidy Holden. Hot Classicism has Tokarski, Schumm, and Smith exploring 13 vintage pieces from the 1920s. Andy Schumm has been involved in some very interesting Bix Beiderbecke projects lately. However on Hot Classicism, he is featured on a repertoire that, with the exception of “Nobody’s Sweetheart Now” (on which he plays his Frank Teschemacher-inspired clarinet) and “Riverboat Shuffle,” are songs not associated with Bix. Schumm stretches himself throughout, even emulating Freddie Keppard a bit on “Here Comes The Hot Tamale Man” while coming closer to Bobby Hackett on “She’s Funny That Way.” A few of the numbers have Schumm on clarinet where, in addition to Tesch, he sometimes recalls Pee Wee Russell in his earliest days. Hal Smith, who I have often thought of as the perfect 1936 drummer and a latter-day extension of Dave Tough and early Gene Krupa, gets to show his versatility throughout the set and always keeps the music swinging. Kris Tokarski has a few pieces in which he pays tribute to Jelly Roll Morton with “Mis
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Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.

Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.

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