Album:  Do True
Artist:    Kenny Warner and Rob Burke
Release Date: 2014
Label:    Jazzhead

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Well-established Melbourne saxophonist Robert Burke has appeared on over 200 CDs ranging from pop/rock acts to contemporary jazz, he’s toured extensively throughout Asia, Europe, the US and Australia, and he’s been Coordinator of Jazz and Popular Studies at Monash University’s School of Music for over ten years. This latest album was recorded in New York with Burke fronting a trio of US musicians led by pianist Kenny Werner. It’s a combination of compositions by Burke and Werner plus one by Paul Grabowsky. Werner a native New Yorker, is a highly experienced pianist and composer, author of Effortless Mastery, a book dealing with musical freedom for musicians, and currently is Artist in Residence at NY University.

The opener and title track by Burke begins with a lengthy free-style tenor cadenza into which soft piano and percussion sounds gradually enter. As the sax races hoarsely forward out of tempo and then drops into the ballad-like theme – with a faint echo of Autumn In New York – the trio adds rhythm with Johannes Weidenmueller’s bass work and Richie Barshay on drums supplementing Werner’s alternately fluid and stabbing piano. Grabowsky’s Angel, a very attractive melody has engaging solos from both piano and sax, while Werner’s Georgia James after a dodging, post-bop opening from piano and sax in unison flows satisfyingly into a strong piano sequence with a bluesy feel and an exploratory sax solo using occasional fast phrasing.

This collection offers sufficient contrasts to make it a pleasurable album in which Burke’s tenor is well integrated with a fine New York trio.

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For just over 24 years I have been a freelance writer, publishing in that time a wide variety of genres: news items, live concert reviews, travel articles, features, personality profiles, and CD and book reviews. I have written for various in-flight magazines, The Adelaide Review, The Republican, The Bulletin, The Australian, The Advertiser, The Melbourne Herald Sun and several regional newspapers. In 1994 I won a national travel-writing prize sponsored by The Australian newspaper, which led to my writing regularly for that paper. Since 2003 I have been jazz critic for The Advertiser and The Australian newspapers, on average contributing weekly to each paper. In 2005 I won a national Jazz Writing Competition sponsored by the Wangaratta Jazz Festival.

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