Standard Time: Neal Miner and Friends
Neal Miner is not only a fine bassist and composer; he's also a remarkable jazz videographer who gets splendid results without a truckload of equipment. His YouTube channel is “gutstringrecords," and I've taken two of his recent videos to share (and applaud) here.
The first is a nimble, sustained reading of the Schertzinger-Mercer I REMEMBER YOU for piano trio: Neal, Michael Kanan on piano, Rick Montalbano on drums:
Aside from the music itself, which is probing without losing the essential rhapsodic quality of the song, I would point out how neatly Neal has solved the problem of making a jazz video visually interesting without having fidgety cutting every few seconds.
And here's CLOSE YOUR EYES by Bernice Petkere, explored by the Pacific Jazz Quartet—Sasha Dobson on the evocative vocal, Neal, Rob Sudduth on tenor saxophone, and Dred Scott on drums:
Satisfying and intriguing — hats off to Neal and friends!
