Essential Messenger Records release the latest Jazz album from the Larry Newcomb Quartet, featuring Larry's son Jake on bass. Love, Dad is a 10 track LP (1 hr, 04 min, 56 sec) that includes four standards as well as six original compositions by Larry...

The album opens with Nacho Herb Brown's 'You Stepped Out of a Dream'. Other standards include Oscar Pettiford's 'Tricotism', P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri's 'Secret Agent Man' and 'The Song is You' by Jerome Kern (which closes the album). It's interesting to note that Larry Newcomb's own compositions wonderfully compliment the standards, which don't feel out of place, nor do they sound like they've been added to fill out space.

If jazz with structure and melody is your thing then there's a lot to enjoy here. This is jazz with a purpose: to entertain an audience, rather than a lot of the self indulgent releases that seem to be popular at the moment.

An old school jazz album which really drives home the power of the genre when it's handled properly.

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Nick Smithson