Bob Powers

MARIETTA, OH, USA - You think this job is one to be desired? Well, of course it is, but you'd be surprised at the amount of time I slash through every week in trying to compose a readable column that spotlights the best available albums, usually fresh from the companies that made them.

This week, for instance, I planned to give you the word on a stack of piano CDs that have kept me busy with my pitiful old Hi-Fi for weeks, in some cases, and the past 48 hours in another. But we must wait, dear readers, for the good news coming out of New Orleans.

The exquisite Los Hombres Calientes has produced a great album under any method of evaluating wonderful music. This is likely to become the CD that would make Los Hombres Calientes. It's just downright GREAT!

Why, you ask? For the reason that leaders Irvin Mayfield and Bill Summers have documented the passionate music from five areas: Trinidad, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and New Orleans. Members of the band traveled to chosen locations, met with local musicians and together assembled. recorded sessions that are simply astonishing.

Mayfield, a wonderful trumpet genius, and Summers, a gifted percussionist, have create music that all lovers of jazz and things Latin should put in their orders fpr today from their particular favorite music shop. Official release date is March 25, so let this serve as fair warning. You will thank yourself many times over.

The boyish Irvin Mayfield plays trumpet as if it had placed in his crib shortly after birth. He can do anything you'd care attempt on the brass instrument.

Summers is one of those drum guys who can make the instrument of choice seem like it was made only for him. He's not one of those blasted show-offs, but is rather subtle when needed and rowdy when called for. With the other excellent musicians of the core band, there are special contributions by talented guest musicians, including Cyril Neville, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, and Leon "Kid Chocolate" Brown.

"Vol. 4: Vodou Dance" is a perfect follow-up to the great "Vol. 3: New Congo Square." These guys are sensational.

The band is prolific, as their previous CD came out this January. It's something a bit different, but that can be said for nearly every CD released by Irvin Mayfield. This package isn't billed as from Los Hombres Calientes. Instead it's billed as "Half Past Autumn Suite."

Mayfield, who must find it difficult to wedge out time for sleeping, was commissioned by the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2003. The music was to pay honor to Gordon Parks, the brilliant photographer, who also appears on one track of the CD, playing piano on "Wind Song." For a man who's not a professional musician, Parks acquits himself very well.

The album is a CD Extra, containing such goodies as down gradable photos, a video interview with Parks, and two special behind-the-scenes music videos with Mayfield in the studio.

These are two examples of why Irvin Mayfield and Bill Summers are more than good stuff.

Bob Haggart & Porgy

George Gershwin, in case you hadn't heard, wrote tons of great music. He's been gone longer than most of us have been alive, but a new album from the reliable Arbors Jazz shows that Gershwin still sounds fresh and lovely.

"The Music of Bob Haggart under the musical direction of Randke. Featuring his Classic Porgy and Bess Arrangements and Other Greatest Hits."

You'd better write the title on a piece of paper and hand it to the clerk at the disc emporium. Otherwise, you may have to wait for a while.

The arrangements are excellent, but that's to be expected. Haggart started out in the music business as a crack performer on the bass for the Bob Crosby band in the '30s, Haggart later became co-leader of the renowned World's Greatest Jazz Band with Yank Lawson.

The arrangements of the popular Gershwin score are now on CDs and done to perfection by Randy Snake. Those wonderful old songs ("It Ain't Necessarily So," "Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman, Now" and many others make this a must purchase for all fans of the wonderful George and brother Ira, who wrote the lyrics.

Chuck Hedges Jams

One more winner and I'm out the door for this week.

Are you old enough to have lived through the magnificence of Benny Goodman? If you said "No," that's OK. For one thing, much of the master's original recordings are around all these years since his death in 1986. In popular music, he's best known for a string of dance bands that ranked as some of the best during the '30s and beyond.

Chuck Hedges is the closest thing to Goodman's clarinet sound today. His band, The Milwaukee Connection, stays busy in and around the city made famous by suds.

Hedges' new album on Arbors CD, "Just Jammin'", should keep all fans of Goodman impressed by the fine musicianship demonstrated by Hedges. The arrangements are excellent.

Backing up Hedges are Bucky Buckwalter on vibes, Dan Sullivan on guitar, Gary Meisner at the piano, Mike Britz on bass and the steady Andy LoDuca behind the drum kit.

This one is great fun, with such winners as "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans," "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" and the Lionel Hampton classic, "Midnight Sun."

You will enjoy this one - or you're tone deaf and I feel sorry about that.

Bob Powers always is interested in hearing from record distributors who deal in jazz, rock, folk, and anything that's good. For instructions on getting your album reviewed, contact him at oldbob@localnet.com.

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