Dom Minasi Trio. (Sound Recording Reviews).(Sound Recording Review)

Dom Minasi Trio. Takin' the Duke Out. CDM Records CDM 1001, 2001.

Guitarist Dom Minasi has been an occasional presence on the New York jazz scene since the 1950s, working with a multitude of jazz and pop singers, putting together children's workshops and writing music and literacy curricula, composing, arranging, teaching as many as one hundred guitar students at any given time, and leading improvisational ensembles. For almost twenty years he avoided the mainstream jazz scene, but edged back onto the club circuit in 1996. This live album finds him playing a set of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn compositions at the Knitting Factory with a trio that includes bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Jackson Krall. Minasi's approach is controversial, and with good reason: his performances are structured in a relatively conventional way--state the melody, play a bunch of solos, state the melody again and end--but his approach to soloing can be radical to the point of incoherence. Thus, the significance of this album's title: in jazz parlance, to ...