David Garfield & The Retro Jazz Quintet - David Garfield & The Retro Jazz Quintet (2019) [Hi-Res]

David Garfield has appeared on one of our projects previously…The Latin Jazz Trio with Luis Conte and David Carpenter. That disc has been one of our best-selling products because of the amazing playing and the relaxed nature of most of the songs. David approached me and asked whether I would be interested in producing a new project with an electric quintet that features two wonderful brass players.

This time the song list was not very familiar to me and "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" received full-blown jazz treatment with variations for each instrument. As is common, the number of instruments heard and seen here exceed the number of instrumentalists. Walt Fowles on trumpet and Larry Klimas on tenor sax seem to beautifully complement each other and harmonize almost perfectly much of the time. With leader David Garfield, Ernest Tibbs on bass and Oscar Seaton on drums, round out this fine quintet. Though this is, by definition, a rather small group, much of the time they almost have that traditional "big band" sound and ably aided by the outstanding (and relatively close-up) recording. Putting the surround sound channels to use adds quite a bit to that big sound. Do remember that a group of this size can fit into most of our listening or living rooms.

David Garfield, piano, Fender Rhodes
Larry Klimas, saxophone, flute
Walt Fowler, trumpet, flugelhorn
Ernest Tibbs, bass
Oscar Seaton, drums