Album Review: Jazz Passion & Satin Latin from Jimbo Ross

Album:  Jazz Passion & Satin Latin
Artist:  Jimbo Ross
Label:  Bodacious Records
Website:  Bodaciousrecords.com/about-jimbo-ross
Facebook.com/jimboross

Jazz Passion & Satin Latin, the latest edition to violist Jimbo Ross's catalog takes audiences back to his jazz roots with selections from the Great American Songbook, jazz standards, and a few original compositions.  Partaking on this adventure with Ross are guitarist Joe Gaeta, pianist Stuart Elster, bassist Peter Marshall, and drummer Ron Wagner.

The band recorded the 13 tracks at the Sonic Boom Room studio using minimal overdubbing and no track-stacking over a four-day period.  The press release supplies, "Ross plays a modified copy of a classic viola, reproduced on a 3-D printer, and dually upgraded with a 5th string to extend the upper range of the instrument, and an electronic pickup to allow it to be heard alongside the other instruments."

Ross's viola is well pronounced on each track while melding into the melodic fabric.  The album starts off with Victor Young's cheerful romp "Delilah," featuring gypsy-swing tempered riffs from Ross over a pallet of straight-ahead swing and Latin jazz, providing a robust rhythmic motion.  The succor-enriched ballad "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" sees elaborate curlicues from Ross surfing over the harmonic forms, creating a dreamy escape.

The bopping grooves of Wes Montgomery's "Jingles" are stippled by Ross's twangy ringlets on the viola, slinking across Elster's jaunty keys, Gaeta's relaxed guitar twines, and Wagner's sizzling drumbeats.  Gaeta's original tune "Don, the Working Man" begins with a waltzing rubato on the viola then cruises into a sauntering time in Elster's keys, producing a comfy candlelight ambience haloed by Ross's twittering strings.

The samba rhythm swiveling across Barry Harris's tune, "Lolita," is lassoed in the swinging vibrations of Ross's cascading furls, which then coasts into the Latin swing grooves of "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes," as the wavey patterns of Gaeta's guitar and Elster's keys produce a cheery mood.  The waltzing stride in Marshall's bass and Wagner's drums, strolling along Johnny Mandel's "Emily" are shrouded in the glinting pellets of Ross's viola and Elster's keys.

The quivering sensations from Ross's viola resonate mounds of emotion along George Gershwin's "My Man's Gone Now" from the opera Porgy and Bess.  The band's arrangement sees Elster and Gaeta's solos delivering a heartfelt performance.  The album concludes with the perky Ernest Lecuona melody "The Breeze and I," cording brisk quakes from Gaeta's guitar followed by Ross's agile movements on the viola, adding urgency to the arrangement.

Over the years, Ross has built a stunning list of credits, working with a wide breadth of performers including Don Ellis, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, and Tony Bennett, among many others.  Ross cooks up paths of harmony with equal portions of passionate improvisations and jazz-influenced engineering.  Ross covers a wide range of styles ranging from blues to samba and from torchlight soul to jazz improvisation.  His musical explorations continue to motivate his creations to pave paths of harmony.

Musicians:
Jimbo Ross - viola
Joe Gaeta - guitar
Stuart Elster - piano
Peter Marshall - bass
Ron Wagner - drums