Search - Howard Roberts :: Good Pickin's

Howard Roberts is a CLEAN guitar player

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 07/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Playing with the name of another important album from Howard Roberts (HR is a dirty guitar player) I ended coming up with the title for this review. This to testify the great talent of Howard Roberts which at the time of this recording (59) was a very clean and smart Jazz guitarist. You can't go wrong with this album. Howard was a bop kind of musician. Here he was accompanied by an all star west coast band. Red Mitchell and Stan Levy formed the rhythm duo, and sorry if it's not enough (!!!) Bill Holman was one of the two arrangers (the other was Marty Paich, the father of David Paich the keyboard player for the band Toto) and he played the tenor too here. The program range from standards and bop numbers like the Bird's line Relaxin' at Kamarillo plus a couple of originals (one is a blues from HR himself). I think this is one just perfect session. Verve has just re-released it yet. So, buy it for few bucks. This is another no problem and inspiring jazz album. It came out in 59. HR did very few dates under his own name even if he has been one of the most prolific guitarist known to men. This deserves your attention even if you're not another "dirty guitar player" (like HR and like myself). Howard was a studio musician and a very important educator (he co-founded Guitar Institute of Technology in LA). But this is another story, this is Jazz. HR was a VERY GOOD JAZZ guitar player too. =)))"

Howard in top form!

Richard A. Zahniser | Corozal, Belize, Central America | 08/22/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was the first HR album I ever owned. He is in top form, showing the "pre-funky" style he adopted when he first came to LA from Phoenix. He plays a lot of bop licks, and some tricky duet stuff, but there's a lot of solid Roberts guitar to enjoy."