Search - Greg Piccolo :: Homage

There's only good music and bad music

George R. Dreher | West Texas | 09/21/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Greg Piccolo's repertoire is fascinating, like a never ending bag of tricks. For this CD he pulls out 12 amazing covers of his idols from yesteryear.Now in his early 50s, Greg Piccolo has lived a 35 year working career of playing blues oriented sax, much of it with the 10 piece Roomful of Blues and the last ten years on his own with either a quintet or a trio. This CD features a quartet.He sailed though high school doing covers of the late 60s rock at Misquamicut State Beach in Rhode Island where is band nailed the house gig during the summer. In the winter he would play more blues oriented music at the "Como" (Community Center). He later left college to join Roomful of Blues in 1971 where he played until going solo in 1994. He then did two CDs on Fantasy they called Acid Blues, but he wanted to release the magic of this CD, "Homage", independently. It was interesting that Greg chose to do this material since he had more than enough original songs (Pic music) to fill 2 CDs and would sometimes even say he was going to do a country recording. Perhaps it's because of his roots, perhaps to satisfy the critics of his Acid Blues, but probably it's just because he always plays what he wants, whatever it is.It's nice that he includes Red Prysock's "Handclappin" because Greg has always had the driving energy exemplified in this cut. On the other end of the scale, he slows it down as much as he ever has with a song he still does in his live performances, a heart wrenching cover of Ben Webster's rendition of "Over The Rainbow". Bill Doggett's easy swing is caught by Piccolo in "Ram-Bunk-Shus" (an easy swing reminescent of Piccolo's 1982 original tune "Yes Indeed!").Gene Ammons and Piccolo are a cosmic fit and Greg chose "You're Not The Kind" for this CD and catches the playful lilt of Ammon's happy go lucky I've got the blues phrasing. Then an intense drama that just might even give you goose bumps is Illinois Jacquet's "You Left Me All Alone" with it's chilling arpeggio crescendos. Joe Houston is brought to life when Piccolo blows "Blow Joe Blow" in a stomping romp that leaves blood."Lester Smooths It Out" is an expanded version of Piccolo's improv on his earlier Acid Blue CD, this time more similarly phrased to Lester Young's '40s cut. Piccolo spreads his wings and flies through an Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis arrangement of "Night and Day".Piccolo has been performing songs by these sax greats for over 32 years but credit should also be given to manager/producer Bonnie Tallman, and the superb session players Marty Ballou on bass, Reese Wynans on piano and organ, and Bobby Ruggiero on drums. As genres go, in the lofty big tent of jazz sax including Sonny Rollins, The Bird, Coltrane, et al, this may seem down to earth to some. To blues purists this may be too jazzy. To fans of Piccolo's Acid Blues this may seem like tunnel vision. But I give it 5 stars as viewed from Duke Ellington's aura of black and white, good music and bad music."