jazz for a saturday night

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Welcome to “Jazz For A Saturday Night.” My name is Al Evans and from March of 2002 through July 2010, I had the distinct honor and privilege of hosting a weekly three-hour radio show called “Saturday Night Jazz” (“SNJ”).

While the show was still on the air, I established this web site (as well as accounts on both Twitter and Facebook) to promote the show and, I hoped, attract new listeners.

On August 13, 2011, a little over a year after SNJ ended its run, I began to use this web site to post reviews of jazz CD’s. My original intention was to post a review every week, on Saturday night. Life had other ideas, and when I posted the last review here almost four years later, it was the 168th.

The show’s motto had been, “Jazz… Real jazz. And a little blues too,” and most of the music I played was melodic, accessible jazz that could be enjoyed by anyone. For the most part, that is the type of jazz I wrote about also.

Saturday nights are for partying and having a good time, and that calls for fast-paced, upbeat music, mostly instrumental. Artists like Jack McDuff, Eric Alexander, Devon Phillips, Dexter Gordon, Reggie Houston, Tom Scott, Steve Gadd, Jimmie Smith, Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Branford Marsalis, Sonny Rollins, and many others.

Those are names you undoubtedly know. But there are hundreds if not thousands of other fantastic jazz artists who, for whatever reason, toil in relative obscurity. I am happy to say you will find a few of those folks represented among the reviews here also.

On a more personal note, if you would like to know more about my lifelong love of music in general, you might check out an article I wrote for Jazz Appreciation Month in 2013 titled, “My Evolution From Accidental Jazz Admirer To Intentional Jazz Lover.”

Please understand that I am no longer writing CD reviews, and I do not anticipate resuming that kind of writing any time soon. So please ignore the verbiage at the end of most of the reviews inviting submissions for consideration.

I do intend to begin posting other types of writing here, which is part of the reason I have modified the site layout. Also, I will be going over the articles I posted here that were not reviews, such as the one above about how I came to love jazz, and will create an index to them as well.

Be that as it may, the CD reviews have been and will always be the heart of this site. Regardless of what directions my writing here takes, the music reviews, like the music itself when I was on the air, will always be accessible.

Thanks for reading this. 🙂

Al Evans
Wood Village, Oregon

PS: If you like, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

(Revised 8/16/2019)

REVIEWS SORTED BY ARTIST NAME

REVIEWS SORTED BY DATE PUBLISHED HERE

 

NOTE: Many of the reviews that I moved to WordPress from the original Blogger version of this site have poor or missing text formatting. Beginning in September 2019, I am finally going through those older posts and correcting the formatting errors. I am hoping to be able to get at least a couple of them done each day, more if possible.

I am working my way down the “Reviews Sorted By Artist” list because I am assuming that is the list most of you will choose what to read from. Just keep in mind, the further down the list you go, the more likely that you will run into the formatting errors.

Thank you! 🙂