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Multi-instrumentalist Miles Donahue didn't get serious about jazz until he was forty-five years old.
Prior to his belated commitment, he spent nearly twenty years working weddings, functions and
lounges--bread and butter jobs to pay the rent and support a family. But when he did make the
decision to go for it, he went in body and heart and soul, recording a couple of first rate CDs on Ram
Records before he decided to establish his own record company, Amerigo Records. In The
Pocket is Donahue's first release on the label, and if his jazz dreams simmered for some years,
they burst into a rolling boil here.
Donahue--one of the few jazz players who double on reeds and trumpet--plays mostly alto sax
on this set; and while the disc's title suggests a contained and 'in the pocket' affair, that suggestion is
only half right. The tunes--ten of the eleven are Donahue-penned--might go with a groove, but
Donahue is a soloist of extraordinary creativity inventiveness; and when tenor sax man Jerry
Bergonzi joins him, the results are doubly-stunning.
Donahue's alto approach is intense, his solos full of surprises--loops and swirls and eddies and
churning currents. He plays with Art Pepper's urgency, George Coleman's inventiveness within the
geometry of the composition, and Jackie McLean's strung-tight edginess.
In The Pocket is mainstream jazz, at its highest level, thanks in good measure to
Donahue's arranging skills. Each and every tune has a sparkle and polish, similar in attitude to the
George Coleman/Ned Otter collaborations Danger High Voltage and
So Little Time.
A consistently sharp-edged set of straight ahead sounds. Highlights: just about any solo by
Donahue or Jerry Bergonzi, anywhere on the disc; "4D's and a G" for the Jerry Bergonzi/
Donahue tenor/alto interplay; "Kelneka" for pianist Fred Hersch's eloquent solo.
Mainstream jazz doesn't get much better...
Visit Miles Donahue on the web
~ Dan McClenaghan
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Track Listing: In The Pocket, Kelneka, McEjim, 4 D's and a G, Emma's Song, Lights Out, All the Way, A Sometime
thing, Waitin' for the Ice Cream Man, In the Pocket, Emma's Song-reprise
Personnel: Miles Donahue, alto sax, tenor sax, trumpet, and keyboards; Jamey Haddad, drums; Fred Hersch,
piano; Jay Anderson, bass; Jerry Bergonzi, tenor sax; Ricardo Monzon, percussion; Kurt
Rosenwinkle, guitar; Dan Greenspan, bass; John Paul, guitar
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