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Nutty

There was a time when The Rat Pack ruled, Vegas had a vibe, Martinis were a lunch staple and jazz clubs were the place to be. Imagine that today...and you get NUTTY.

Nutty? Sure. Fun? Oh yeah. But what about the music?

Don't let the styles and smiles fool you. These cats play their asses off. Nutty artfully melds brilliant interpretations of Modern Standards (aka pop & rock classics) with timeless jazz. And when Sonny saunters up to croon, you might start to believe it's 1962. Why fight it? Order up a top-shelf cocktail and enjoy the ride. To simply describe Nutty's music as "jazzy versions of classic rock songs" doesn't really get the job done. It's so much more than that...

On stage, it's a Bachelor Pad vibe, right down to the black suits, skinny ties and irreverent humor. And when the fiddlers have fled, the songs stay in your head. Come for the funny, stay for the music.

For the jazz enthusiast—or even the jazz purist—the arrangements are sharp and valid, as they pay homage to jazz greats like Brubeck, Dizzy, Coltrane, Miles, Duke, Cannonball and Monk. For those whose knowledge of jazz doesn't go beyond "Take Five" and "So What", Nutty is an entertaining education into the classics.

To those who don't know how to spell jazz, it's a whole 'nother version of cool. After all, they've never heard The Beatles, Steppenwolf, The Who, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath or AC/DC sound quite like this. And, on top of that, the band throws in an occasional movie or TV theme just to see if you're payin' attention.

It's not odd for a fan who's heard Nutty play their favorite pop/rock tune to research the jazz references they've heard. Next thing you know, you've got a new jazz fan. Let it be said that Nutty doesn't make fun of jazz, rather they make jazz fun. And it's a gas!

Nutty has a rather oddball history. Briefly known as Chase Lounge And The Lazy Boys, the band was a loose jump blues group, with guitar, bass, drums and vocal. There were no horns, and there were no signs of jazz...yet.

Vocalist Sonny Moon (Joel Hile) was lured in under the condition that all he had to do was walk up to the mike and sing. But soon he took control, and began to veer the band's sound toward lounged-out classic rock songs. When bassist Guy Wonder (a.k.a. Mike Werner) joined the quartet, Sonny found a like-minded co-conspirator, and the band became nutty, and soon thereafter became Nutty.

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Album Review

Nutty: Jetsetter Jazz

Read "Jetsetter Jazz" reviewed by James Nadal


The outsourcing of cover material in jazz has become relatively common practice. The vast Great American Songbook, with diversity ranging from popular standards to show tunes and beyond, has provided a goldmine for improvisation, as has gospel, blues and soul music. So the question arises: what about rock? Why hasn't this genre contributed more to the jazz repertoire? Is it that many jazz musicians don't want to admit that they came up--as many have--listening to rock, and still have an ...

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Recording

Hendrix Hangs with Mancini, Brubeck Sits in with The Moody Blues & Thelonious Jams with The Monkees in New CD, “Jetsetter Jazz: The Persuasive Sounds of Nutty”

Source: Diane

LOS ANGELES, CA: The music of The Kinks, Dave Brubeck, Aerosmith, Duke Ellington, Neil Young, Dizzy Gillespie and many more is celebrated with hard- swinging, lounged-out reinterpretations in Nutty's new CD, Jetsetter Jazz: The Persuasive Sounds of Nutty, set for release March 28, 2012 at a launch soiree at Skinny's Lounge in the NoHo district of Hollywood, California. Jetsetter Jazz is Nutty's second CD and presents a menu of twelve new songs that are a suave nod back to a ...

75

Music Industry

Jerry Lewis, Marvin Hamlisch Taking 'Nutty Professor' to Broadway

Jerry Lewis, Marvin Hamlisch Taking 'Nutty Professor' to Broadway

Source: Michael Ricci

A musical version of the 1963 comedy classic “The Nutty Professor" is headed to Broadway, and the director will be none other than Jerry Lewis himself.

The comedian, who won't be acting in the musical, has brought on board Marvin Hamlisch to write music and Rupert Holmes to do book and lyrics. Producers are planning on an opening during the 2010-11 Broadway season.

Lewis, who turned 83 this year, starred in the original Paramount feature film, which he co-wrote with ...

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