Michael Kocour - Spiffy (2015)

Tracklist

01. Dropped Third Strike (feat. Bruce Forman, Dom Moio & Eric Schneider)
02. Chunky (feat. Bruce Forman, Dom Moio & Eric Schneider)
03. Da Good Stuff (feat. Dom Moio, Eric Schneider & Bruce Forman)
04. Tenderly (feat. Dom Moio, Eric Schneider & Bruce Forman)
05. Huffininpuffin (feat. Dom Moio, Eric Schneider & Bruce Forman)
06. Collapso (feat. Bruce Forman, Dom Moio & Eric Schneider)
07. Girl Talk (feat. Eric Schneider, Dom Moio & Bruce Forman)
08. Spiffy (feat. Bruce Forman, Dom Moio & Eric Schneider)
09. Monk's Hayride (feat. Bruce Forman, Dom Moio & Eric Schneider)



You know how it is. Over the years, you change locales once or twice, and being the gregarious sort, you collect new friends wherever you go. Despite the fact that they inhabit different orbits, you feel pretty sure these friends would all get along; actually, you think they might even make up a solid little gang – a small fraternity with real staying power. Problem is, while each of them knows you separately, they’ve never all converged at once; they’ve never all been in the same place at the same time. So you decide to convene them: dinner, softball game, out for drinks – it doesn’t really matter. It’s just high time that they all met.

Sometimes, it ends in disaster. (Good reference point: the 2011 movie Bridesmaids.) But sometimes, it goes swimmingly. And once in a great while, it turns out even better than you might have hoped, and your solid little gang is off and running. Once in a very great while, it even sounds like the music on this disc.

To record Spiffy, the impeccable keyboardist Mike Kocour brought together several of his favorite jazz collaborators for a (thus far) twice-in-a-lifetime experience. The first time they all played in the same band was in February, 2015, in Scottsdale, Arizona, not far from Tempe, where Kocour directs the jazz studies program in the School of Music at Arizona State University. The second time they played together? You have the results in your hands.

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