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Ray Brinker

Ray Brinker is a professional drummer based in Los Angeles, CA.

Ray received a Bachelor Of Music in Jazz Studies from North Texas State University, and performed as a member of NTSU’s Grammy-nominated 1 O’Clock Lab Band.

Upon graduation from NTSU, Ray toured worldwide with jazz high-note trumpet player Maynard Ferguson before moving to the West Coast, where he has become a staple in the Los Angeles studio and performance scene.

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4
Album Review

Lauren White: Making It Up As We Go Along

Read "Making It Up As We Go Along" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello


With this, her fifth album, Los Angeles-based Renaissance lady, Lauren White offers eleven intriguing selections across a range of styles and sources, backed up by some of the city's best. While shrewdly avoiding the tried, true and over-recorded, White uses her subtle skills with taste and maturity. Interestingly, the album plays sequentially as if it were a performance. That is one of its attractions. Launching things, Steely Dan's “I'm Not the Same Without You" is a coy ...

8
Album Review

Ann Hampton Callaway: Finding Beauty. Originals. Volume 1

Read "Finding Beauty. Originals. Volume 1" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


"This is my most personal record," Callaway says. “Throughout my career, I've loved singing the great jazz classics and selections from the Great American Songbook, but I've always snuck my original songs on various projects. The pandemic made me think, 'I don't know if I'll live through this, but if I do, what's at the top of my bucket list?' And I realized that I wanted to tell my story and share the deepest part of me. What better way ...

36
Album Review

Jeremy Cohen: Raymond Scott Reimagined

Read "Raymond Scott Reimagined" reviewed by Walter Atkins


Raymond Scott Reimagined is an engaging collaborative project with Quartet San Francisco, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band and the Grammy winning acapella group Take 6 on two tracks. The album is a thoughtful and stylish interpretation of Raymond Scott's legacy. It is also interspersed with audio tidbits featuring Scott's singular musical approaches. The album kicks off with the enticing “Powerhouse," familiar to anyone who has watched a Warner Bros Looney Tunes cartoon. “Toy Trumpet" is a tasty composition ...

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Album Review

Grant Geissman: Blooz

Read "Blooz" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


There are several ways of judging the success of a recording. Perhaps a hearing makes the listener, if a musician, want to sit in and jam. That is a good sign. Then there is the “sit still test." For many, the direct, emotional and physical connection between music and brain leaves them simply hanging out, absence of motion impossible, sitting still not an option. Grant Geissman's Blooz happily passes both tests. Turn the volume up and a blues party comes ...

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Album Review

Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band: The Reset

Read "The Reset" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Gordon Goodwin's dynamic Big Phat Band rumbles back onto the scene with The Reset, a somewhat less-than-big-phat album whose dual purpose, according to Goodwin, is to express hope and gratitude in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic and to honor one of Goodwin's mentors, the late Sammy Nestico. Goodwin calls the album an EP, whose twenty-eight minute playing time places it in roughly the same ballpark as a vinyl LP from the good old days before digital recording and streaming. ...

5
Album Review

Lauren White and the Quinn Johnson Trio: Ever Since The World Ended

Read "Ever Since The World Ended" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


There is an interesting take of “Ever Since the World Ended" on You Tube. It is an evocative video, a kind of visual essay on Mose Allison's blues which could serve as an anthem to the pandemic and accompanying mess we are in. Lauren White (accompanied by Dolores Scozzesi) is appropriately downbeat, and well complemented by the Quinn Johnson Trio. One could enjoy a stiff drink while reflecting on the last year and listening. And, mostly, ...

5
Album Review

Lauren White: Ever Since The World Ended

Read "Ever Since The World Ended" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


There is a cadre of West Coast jazz musicians who tacitly orbit one Mark Winkler. This embarrassing wealth of talent includes: Cheryl Bentyne, Dolores Scozzesi, Judy Wexler, Robyn Spangler, Gary Brumburgh, Jeffery Gimble, Ada Bird Wolfe, and our present subject, Lauren White. White, an original East Coast product, expatriated to Westward to act and sing...and record. Her previous recording, Life In The Modern World (Cafe pacific Records, 2019) was the (unknowing) opening bookend to a most curious cultural year we ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Making It Up As We Go...

Cafe Pacific Records
2024

buy

Raymond Scott...

ViolinJazz Recordings
2023

buy

Finding Beauty....

Shanachie Records
2023

buy

Signature

Rhombus Records
2022

buy

Smile

Resonance Records
2022

buy

Blooz

MESA/Bluemoon
2022

buy

Cutey and the Dragon

From: Raymond Scott Reimagined
By Ray Brinker

Toy Trumpet

From: Raymond Scott Reimagined
By Ray Brinker

Sister Moon

From: Smile
By Ray Brinker

Your Heart Is As Black As Night

From: Signature
By Ray Brinker

The Reset

From: The Reset
By Ray Brinker

The Moon is a Kite

From: The Moon is a Kite
By Ray Brinker

Revelation

From: Revelation
By Ray Brinker

Ever Since The World Ended

From: Ever Since The World Ended
By Ray Brinker

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