The Larry Slezak Hammond Organ Band will once again be performing at Ovations tonight, November 13th.  Please join us for
a night of great jazz music and fun.  The downbeat is at 8, so don’t be late!
See you there!

Great News for Tierra

In the mail last week I opened my NARAS Ballot. I have been a voting member since 2002. Every year since then, I open that ballot and look to see one of our projects on it. Well what do you know? I went to the voting site and found that the Larry Slezak album “No Worries” is up for nomination for the Best Instrumental Jazz Album, Individual or Group. I dug a bit deeper and read that both Larry Slezak and Jose Miguel-Yamal had both received a nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Soloist for the song ‘You’ve Changed” from the Slezak album. If that’s not enough, I made it through the first round in the production category for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

It was truly a thrill for me to cut this album. The entire album was made up of musicians from the local AFM 65-699. What a great testament to the fine musicianship found here in Houston, Texas.

Wish us luck in the Grammy process. Please go to itunes and download this great record or go to www.larryslezak.com and hit the “buy it now” link.

The link below is just a glimpse of what you will find on this fine album.

Cheers,
Glenn Wheeler, engineer

You’ve Changed
You’ve Changed Download

Larry Slezak plays his sax for an adaptation a tune by legendary jazz trombonist Frank Rosolino. Slezak plays next on Sept. 4 and 25, 2009 at Ovations Night Club in Houston.

Music from this unfamiliar artist results in a welcome surprise. Wow! Where has this musician been hiding? New York born and bred saxophonist/educator Larry Slezak, who delivers his very first album as leader with No Worries, and what an album it is. With a dynamic selection of standards—from Neal Hefti’s oft-recorded “Girl Talk,” Carl Fischer’s love ballad, “You’ve Changed,” to a riveting treatment of Jose Feliciano’s “Chico and the Man,” the theme song from the old television series with Jack Albertson and Freddie Prinze. The vibrant music here, clearly sustains a good measure of swing, superbly bolstered by dicey hard-driving charts and a striking performance from the leader and extended cast. A longtime resident of Houston, Texas, Slezak, is the premiere Jazz saxophonist in the Houston Jazz community who also performs with the Houston Symphony and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, as well as serving as the Director of Jazz Ensembles at Rice University. For this first effort, Slezak records with a core quintet comprised of guitarist Clayton Dyess, bassist Thomas Helton, Jose-Miguel Yamal on Hammond B-3 organ and piano, and son Joe Slezak on drums. There are two orchestral pieces (sixteen-piece string orchestra on four cuts,), straight ahead and some bluesy sounds here. This is an impressive beginning for a truly outstanding musician.

I do keep inching up on the Roots Music Report Jazz Chart. Right now I’m sitting at number 18 on the chart. That’s up from number 31 a couple months ago.

In other news, KGLT jazz radio in Bozeman, Montana is still ranking me within the top 10 of popular artists! Right now I’m number 7 on the station’s list.

Sheri Lavo is the super-talented vocalist who sings with my band, the Larry Slezak Hammond B3 Organ Band. Here we are performing at Ovations Night Club in Houston in June 2009.

Jazz flourished and expanded out of many cities in America during its ‘birth’, Houston, Texas, being one of them. The tradition continues today and Larry Slezak is one of Houston’s premier saxophonists. After working in many bands he has finally made the jump to being bandleader himself and recorded his debut album, No Worries. Working essentially as a five piece band, but with extra musicians and a string section added on certain tracks, No Worries is a muscular type of album, honking sax to the fore – you can almost smell the club ambience and cigarette smoke oozing from each track. The main musicians are Clayton Dyess on guitar, Thomas Helton on bass, Jose-Miguel Yamal on piano and a very funky Hammond B3, Joe Slezak on drums, with Larry Slezak playing tenor and soprano sax. The twelve tracks are a mixture of classics like How About You, Girl Talk, Wee Small Hours, Cry Me A River [both with engaging vocals by Sheri Lavo], Secret Love and the self-composed No Worries, which bounces along like a sleek panther. There’s something very ‘old school’ about this album, and that is both its vibe and the sense of musical fun being had by the musicians and the listeners of the CD. No Worries is an album that follows its own advice and just offers some good old fashioned jazz virtues of melody and virtuosity and a good time. I half expect Sinatra to pop in on some of the ballads to sing a verse or two. Definitely one of the best jazz albums I’ve heard this year.

Jazz saxophonist Larry Slezak plays Duke Ellington from Larry Slezak on Vimeo.

Larry Slezak jams to “Just Squeeze Me” by Duke Ellington at Ovations Night Club on June 12.

This video is from “gacman57″ on YouTube. Here’s what he had to say about it:

Larry Slezak Band performs at River Oaks Center in Houston, TX on 05/01/2009 to benefit the Houston Food Bank. It was great fun for Brooke and Greg and the cause was well served. Kudos to California Pizza Kitchen for their generosity.

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Download (Jazz Next episode on Larry Slezak).

Click here to learn more about the show:

GLT Music Director and Jazz Host Jon Norton and Arts Editor and Jazz Host Laura Kennedy share their jazz picks in this weekly podcast. Listen for up-and-coming artists and tunes deserving a bit more attention. You’ll also learn a little about the artist and with this weekly podcast, you’ll stay on top of what’s happening in jazz.

I like doing blue collar stuff with my hands. I feel it keeps me grounded to people who don’t have the gift that I have. People involved in art, many times, can lose touch with regular folks. To me, art isn’t good unless it speaks to regular folks.

I’ve always enjoyed watching carpenters, roofers, brick layers. Any type of blue collar work, I’ve always liked it.

Music isn’t relaxing, it’s emotionally draining. At least at the level that I try to perform it. So I try to relax by fixing things. Over my lifetime I’ve learned to do a lot of that. But the first thing was working on cars.