TOO MUCH TO DO
Nick la Riviere
Indie
9-out-of-10

Nick la Riviere plays the trombone, and he plays it very well.

The guy has a flare, which makes the music simply a joy to listen to.

The opening cut is Inspiration, and the title fits the mood of the music completely. This is a song of joy, of excitement, of well, inspiration.

The album includes four original efforts by la Riviere, and that is always exciting on a jazz album, to see where an artist can take the music. Here the artist does excellent work. The Streets is one of his best here.

Five others are jazz standards, such as Clifford Brown's Joy Spring, and Weaver of Dreams from Young and Elliot. The latter is a beautiful piece on the disk.

The nine pieces cover 71-minutes of music, and that is a lot of fine music in this case.

La Riviere is complimented by a rhythm section which includes Ross Taggart, Jodi Proznick and Jesse Cahill.

A nice addition to the album is a string section, provided by Cam Wilson, Julian Vitek and Peggy Lee.

The combination of strings and rhythm sections as background add a compliment to la Riviere's trombone and gives the music a richness. There is a big band element here.

This disk is certainly a wonderful example of jazz trombone, and will find favour with lovers of the instrument, or fans of just plain good jazz.

Check it out at www.nicklariviere.com
—; CALVIN DANIELS

INDIVIDUALITY IS AN OLD COMMODITY
Brain Sauce
Indie
7.5-out-of-10

When you get a CD from a band named Brain Sauce you're not quite sure what to expect,
So you toss it on the player, half expecting screamer metal, or something out of left field.

Then the band comes at you with A Theme From Antic Hay (Whats a Man to do?) which is a seven-minute rock anthem, with a hint of blues and you go this is pretty cool stuff.

The Moose Jaw band wins fans with the opening cut.

But this is a progressive indie rock band according to their webpage at www.myspace.com/brainsauce
That means the band is more out in left field than the first song might indicate.

Gomer's Shuffle has a sort of southern rock meets bluegrass/folk feel, that doesn't quite fit with the lead cut.

But the third song, Dirty Disco, does build on the southern rock feel of Gomer's Shuffle. The pluck of the big bass, the rhythm of the song, the pacing of the vocals, yep southern-fried and served up hot.
That southern feel tends to dominate the rest of the way, on cuts such as Marijuana Stole My Baby, which admittedly has some progressive licks mixed in.

The band includes Brodie Mohninger, Mark Lowe, John Dale, Steve Leidal and David Howard.
This is a fun album. You can tell the band was having a blast pumping out the tunes. This is just good old rock with a few little twists, and that is really a nice change as many bands are trying to create art. This is rock for the sake of rock. Check it out folks, a solid effort from a Saskatchewan band.
— CALVIN DANIELS

Past reviews are archived online at http://calmardan.
blogspot.com/