Sun Ray: A Tribute To Ray Bryant (self-released) is an album that shows the utmost respect for jazz, a musician, and a friend. The album by the Lenny Marcus Trio (Marcus on piano, Larry Scott on drums, and Rick Eckberg on bass) is the kind of diversity and jazz you come to love, expect, and respect from albums released throughout the 1960?s, where you’ll hear a bit of be-bop, something traditional, a bit of Brasilia with a dash into bossa nova, and a ballad or two, and the playing here is very exquisite. Everyone on this album stands out, but when Marcus gets into a mean solo, as he does in “Cubano Chant”, you can not only hear hints of what Marcus taught up, but Marcus offering acknowledgment to his mentor. It gets quite deep when you hear one of three Marcus originals, the title track that might make a few hip-hop producers go “oh!, I want to use that”. Not without permission, of course. Impressive album from start to finish.
See the review in person here.
April 27, 2012 | Categories: Album News, Promo | Leave A Comment »
You can now download all my albums at Bandcamp.com. What is great about Bandcamp is that you can download my albums in high quality formats such as 320k MP3, FLAC, WAV and more. Check out my new releases as well as my entire back catalog. There are about twenty albums that you can sample and download.
Thanks for listening.
April 12, 2012 | Categories: Album News, Promo | Tags: albums, back catalog, band camp, bandcamp, CDs, jazz, records | Leave A Comment »
How cool is this? Not only was Bryant an early Marcus piano teacher, Bryant was also Marcus’s father’s best friend. Any kid thinking about music would be a head case to throw away an opportunity like that. From having his songs on the Weather Channel to getting a chance to pay a heart felt tribute to the recently departed Bryant, Marcus doesn’t disappoint, and here he pulls out all the stops to make sure he gets his point across. A delightfully infectious date that does a fine job of keeping the memory alive, any Bryant fan owes it to himself to listen to this next to the originals. Everyone else owes it to themselves to check it out. Hot stuff.
April 10, 2012 | Categories: Album News, Promo | Tags: Ray Bryant, Weather Channel | Leave A Comment »
In which we find Marcus marking his territory as the jazzbo with the sense of humor, whether making word play with the titles or jazz play with the music. You get the feeling he played a lot of the original Ramsey Lewis Trio, when he was a kid and wasn’t listening to Ray Bryant. Not a retro record, but with a lot of echoes of the 60s era on board, you’ll hear Lewis, Bryant, Hancock and all the rest that were making clear marks in the days before Miles went nuts and turned contemporary jazz on it’s head. Anyone in their 40s or 50s will know and relate to how groovy these sounds are. Now that the new season of “Mad Men” has turned everyone on to Now Sound, it’s time to you to turn to guides like this to show you what you’ve been missing in your quest for uber cool.
Check it out.
April 10, 2012 | Categories: Album News, Promo | Tags: Herbie Hancock, mad men, Miles Davis, Ramsey Lewis Trio, Ray Bryant | Leave A Comment »
“Jazzing the Classics” is anything but new. Jazz versions of Classical pieces have been around since the early part of the twentieth century. Such folks as Art Tatum, the Dorsey brothers, Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Wayne Shorter, to name just a few, have per- formed their own arrangements of well-known Classical compositions. And the Jazz pianist Jacques Loussier was famous for his interpreta- tions of Bach, Debussy, and others. Some of those previous efforts were serious and some were light- hearted. Lenny Marcus’s The Jazz of Beethoven is serious without being somber.
Marcus is a fine pianist with numerous CDs to his credit. With a conventional piano trio aug-mented by a percussionist, Marcus treats some of Beethoven’s most famous works with respect while clothing them in clever arrangements and utilizing them as vehicles for personal improvisa- tion. In doing so, he might add a Latin underpin- ning, as he does to “Waldstein Two,” which also alludes to a phrase in Dizzy Gillespie’s “Manteca.” Or perform “Für Elise” in 5/4, in the manner of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” Or give “Ode to Joy” a bluesy, earthy groove with a strong backbeat.
All of this works because Beethoven’s original melodies are tuneful and lend themselves to these kinds of treatments and because the arrange- ments are intelligent and well-executed. The trio’s performances, including Marcus’s improvisations on the Beethoven material, would be judged excellent regardless of context.
David Franklin
January 5, 2012 | Categories: Album News | Leave A Comment »
JazzTimes has posted a review of my CD, “The Jazz of Beethoven.” Thanks to all the musicians and engineers involved in helping make this album.
“If classical music can be criticized for something, is for the relegation of rhythm in favor of the development of melodic and harmonic sophistication. It is precisely the rhythmic complexity that comes from Africa, found in jazz and afro caribbean music, their greatest advantage of these music forms over classical music.”
You can read the rest of the review by clicking here.
January 5, 2012 | Categories: Album News | Leave A Comment »
Just as the title suggests. There are more dates added to the show list. There are a few album projects in the works. I will release more details as they become available.
Thanks for listening.
February 28, 2011 | Categories: Album News, Tour News | Leave A Comment »
You can buy my CDs in record numbers. I’ve put together some box sets to help promote some upcoming releases. Right now, you can click on the cart buttons to the bottom right column. I will post better descriptions on the Discography page soon. You can also buy these box through my Facebook store on my Fan page. You can get to my fanpage by clicking on the my name in the Facebook box to your right. Then, click on the Shop Now tab.
Thanks for listening!
July 9, 2010 | Categories: Album News | Leave A Comment »
Sun Ray: A Tribute To Ray Bryant (self-released) is an album that shows the utmost respect for jazz, a musician, and a friend. The album by the Lenny Marcus Trio (Marcus on piano, Larry Scott on drums, and Rick Eckberg on bass) is the kind of diversity and jazz you come to love, expect, and respect from albums released throughout the 1960?s, where you’ll hear a bit of be-bop, something traditional, a bit of Brasilia with a dash into bossa nova, and a ballad or two, and the playing here is very exquisite. Everyone on this album stands out, but when Marcus gets into a mean solo, as he does in “Cubano Chant”, you can not only hear hints of what Marcus taught up, but Marcus offering acknowledgment to his mentor. It gets quite deep when you hear one of three Marcus originals, the title track that might make a few hip-hop producers go “oh!, I want to use that”. Not without permission, of course. Impressive album from start to finish.
You can now download all my albums at Bandcamp.com. What is great about Bandcamp is that you can download my albums in high quality formats such as 320k MP3, FLAC, WAV and more. Check out my new releases as well as my entire back catalog. There are about twenty albums that you can sample and download.
JazzTimes has posted a review of my CD, “The Jazz of Beethoven.” Thanks to all the musicians and engineers involved in helping make this album.
