Dave Potter and Retro Groove 2 : Modernizing the Music of the Seventies and Eighties

Dave Potter & Retro Groove

The Atlanta based drummer Dave Potter has made a name for himself as a part of  the rhythm sections of the vibraphonist Jason Marsalis, saxophonist Greg Tardy, pianist Eric Reed and the pianist Marcus Roberts. Originally from North Carolina, Potter studied his trade at Florida State University, where he received a masters degree after turning down an offer to attend prestigious Julliard School of Music to continue his education under the tutelage of Roberts, who is on the faculty at Florida. 

I met Dave when I lived in Atlanta for several years and had a chance to see him perform up close at jazz impresario Sam Yi's Mason Tavern and at one of the popular jazz shows at Atlanta's High Museum. I had more than one occasion to talk with Dave about the music. Besides being a very good drummer, he is a thoughtful student of the music.

Dave Potter (photo credit unknown)

Potter has been working as a leader with his Retro Groove group for several years now. He has developed a musical simpatico with saxophonist Miguel Alvarado, one of the group's stalwarts, and their interaction shines on his latest record Retro Groove 2, which was released on February 7, 2025. 

In addition to Alvarado on tenor, Potter is joined by Angelo Versace on piano and Rob Lintin on bass. The album includes two guests, vibraphonist Jason Marsalis, who also uses Potter in his Vibes Quartet, and saxophonist Greg Tardy.

Retro Groove 2 is Potter's third release as a leader and on this one he chooses music from the late seventies and eighties as vehicles on which to add his own brand of hardbop and progressive jazz influences to modernize these often overlooked songs.

The music on this album is varied, with influences that span dance-pop, R & B, prog rock, soft Soul, and even film inspired music. I believe that some of Potter's choices were influenced by who was playing drums on the original song releases.

Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" is a dance-pop song that still can make you move your feet. Potter opens this one with an ostinato bass line by Linton before Potter's propulsive drum work and Alvarado's urgent tenor take it to another level. Abdul's original recording from 1988 and ironically used a drum machine for its rhythm section.

Whitney Houston's  1985 release ,"Saving All My Love For You,"  was originally covered by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. of Fifth Dimension fame. The ballad was composed Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin and features a great saxophone solo by session-master Tom Scott. Whitney's voice took this to another level. Potter and his team's approach provides some plucky bass work by Linton, heartfelt tenor by Alvarado and sensitive piano work by Versace. Potter's drum work is subtle and his instrumental arrangement adds a modernistic approach to this vocal centric R & B classic.

"License to Kill" is the lead song of the James Bond thriller from 1989. The music for the original movie was composed by Michael Kamen. John Barry, the usual music master behind Bond movies, was unavailable due to illness. The title song was originally to be played by Eric Clapton and Vic Flick (an English studio guitarist who cut the original guitar work for the James Bond theme), but ultimately Gladys Knight was chosen to sing the theme. The lead song was composed by fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden with Jeffrey Cohen and Walter Afanasieff, so there lies the drummer connection to Potter's musical choices. Potter may have intuitively felt the drumming influence in this theme, or not, but the music is fun, the band executes it with gusto and whether you are a Bond fan or not the music grabs you and can evoke good memories.

The band covers an Isley Brothers' 1975 release "For the Love of You", a soft R & B composition that Potter and company plays in a jaunty, swinging way proving these hidden gems can be vehicles that can be fertile for improvisation.

Potter is young enough to have been influenced by  prog rock style of the Canadian group Rush and their drummer Neal Peart, a drumming legend. "Tom Sawyer"  is a song with a theme about rebellion and individualism. Released in 1981, this  prog rock anthem is opened by Potter with his own explosive drum entre, demonstrating some of his skills, and the group takes off from there. Alvarado sets out the repeating melody line on his potent tenor. Linton on bass and Potter on drums create a forceful rumble of power before Versace produces  a fluid improvisation that weaves in and out of the staccato theme. This rendition is half prog rock, half modern jazz with a special tip of the hat to Alvarado's incendiary sax solo. A powerful piece.

The pace slows, as the group tackles the soulful "Why Can't We Fall in Love" from Deniece Williams from 1979. Potter, Linton and Versace accompany guest Jason Marsalis' vibraphone on this one. The vibes have a warm, resonating sound that accentuate the emotional side of this music and Versace gives an added color to the song on his piano solo. Potter on brushes and Linton on bass give appropriately muted accompaniment. 

The hit song "Rosanna" is a 1982 release by the group Toto. It's famous for it's session drummer Jeff Porcaro's iconic "Half-Time Shuffle Groove" on the song. Potter opens with his own devoted version of Porcaro's memorable drum pattern as guest Greg Tardy's tenor sax is heard spelling out the theme's melody. The music has a joyous feel to it and the group relishes the soft shuffle that propels this one. Versace adds a bit of a honky-tonk piano part as Tardy wails.

The finale is from Michael Sembello's "Maniac" a theme from the 1983 dance movie "Flashdance." 

Potter mines some interesting creative possibilities from this potpourri of some of the less memorable music of the seventies and eighties. I am more endeared to the music of the sixties and early seventies, my era, so I guess I'm a bit prejudiced. To me, not all these songs stand the test of time as well as others. It doesn't take away from the effort that Potter and his bandmates took to modernize these compositions in a way that preserves the memories associated with these songs for those who lived with them during an important part of their lives. Under Potter's direction, Retro Groove 2 makes this  era music is enlivened, contemporized, played with verve and talent and just plain fun to listen to. I call that a success.

Therapeutic , Inventive, Spiritual and Expansive : aRT from akLaff, Robinson and Thayer

aRT: ScienSonic Records-

I recently received a new album from the multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson released on his self-produced ScienSonic label. I have always been impressed by the music that comes out of this inventive spirit. Being one of the most accomplished musicians I have ever met, Robinson is also a thinking musician who has dedicated his life's work to both proficiency and expansion. He is a master practitioner and a collector of some of the most unusual and diverse instruments you might find in the business. He has often been awarded top acknowledgement on such instruments. His collection includes a contra-bass saxophone, bass clarinet, Theremin, C Melody saxophone, baritone saxophone, various trumpets,  a bass marimba and F Tuba to name just a few. His main instrument is the tenor saxophone. His multi-instrumental musicianship can be found on his many works as a section member and soloist in Maria Schneider's award-winning orchestra, and with the Charles Mingus Big Band, the Vanguard Jazz Band and the Sun Ra Arkestra not to mention some European orchestras. His work has also been been found in groups that have included Joe Lovano, Ron Carter, Marshall Allen, Paquito D'Rivera, Chet Baker, Teri Lynne Carrington, and Ella Fitzgerald to name a few. His most recent album Tenormore was released in 2019 and I named it one of my best of releases for that year. 

Scott is the proverbial mad scientist of jazz. He is always searching and exploring. Expanding the tonal palette that he uses to create his music is just one of his many pursuits, the quest to finding the perfect note. He has been playing music with two other unique musical explorers since the late eighties- drummer/percussionist/educator Pheeroan akLaff and distinguished Phycology Professor and bassist Dr. Julian Thayer- so it surprising that these guys never released an album of their music until now!

Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer (Photo credit unknown)

Brooklyn born Dr. Julian Thayer is an accomplished bassist who initially pursued a musical education at  Berklee in Boston before following his muse, receiving his PhD from NYU in psychophysiology. His distinguished career as an educator included faculty positions at Penn State, University of Missouri, Ohio State University, University of California Irvine and as a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon and many European and Scandinavian institutions. Thayer has used his awareness of the therapeutic phycological and physiological aspects that music can have on our physical and emotional well being. He believes music can be vital to calming the heart rate variability (HRV) of our inner clockwork. To this end, Thayer has continue to be involved with like-minded musicians like akLaff and Robinson as well as artists like George Garzone, Jimmy Cobb and Terrell Stafford, to make music that can be adventurous, beautiful and uplift the listener.

Pheeroan akLaff (photo credit unknown)

Detroit born Pheeroan akLaff is a progressive drummer/percussionist and educator who currently teaches at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. His percussion work has been mostly seen with some of music's more Avant Garde and free jazz players in the business like saxophonists Oliver Lake, Sam Rivers, Henry Threadgill and Anthony Braxton, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianists Cecil Taylor, Mal Waldron and Andrew Hill. He believes that music can be a source for giving back to society and a vehicle for making change. There is a spiritual side to this man's music and his connection with the spiritual is woven into the way he interacts to his fellow bandmates when he plays. His intuition operates on another level, raising the art of percussion to an truly interactive art.

aRT consists of twenty improvisations all recorded at ScienSonic Laboratories on January 25th, 2024 as is a piece of art in itself. A beautiful cd package, "Abstract Sculptures Looking at Abstract Paintings, and, if the Truth Be Known, Vice Versa" a piece by Richard M. "Gorman" Powers, ca. 1991, adorns the cover and the inside artwork on this album. Scott takes his art seriously and that carries through into his packaging of the recording.

The music feels spontaneous, with titles that beckons you to attend a visual art gallery. It is twenty different aural pieces of art being presented here, but you are being invited to listen to these creations with an open mind, where the synapses of our brain are being encouraged to make the leap from the aural to the visual. We are asked to suspend our reality for  just under one hour that it takes to listen through this demonstration of artistry and free association. If you allow it, you can be immersed, taken away by the creativity and aural images that they create. The titles predominantly include the word abstraction. "Abstract Painting" and "Abstract Sculpture," "Abstraction in Blues" and "Abstract Interlude," and unless you don't yet get the immersion thing there is "Abstract Dance" too. 

aRT: akLaff, Robinson and Thayer @ Holyoke Media, Holyoke Mass June 2024

There's the intro, a brief invitation to the show. There are warbling sound sheets that lead to some shimmering cymbal work, and a probing saxophone that leads into a resonant arco bass line that comes to life. Some percussive accents all being added to the picture by akLaff, like colors by a skilled artist's brush on an open canvas.

The music continues, the next piece adding what sounds like a darting Tuba by Robinson and toms and snare skins being pounded in time by akLaff, as the musicians create their version of a choreographed piece of art, "Dancing About Painting." Thayer's string bass is again bowed like a sighing creature introducing a counterpoint to Robinson's bellowing Tuba, a preposterous creature that waddles through the scene with a boisterous authority, and akLaff's intuitive percussive accompaniment together makes this one piece titled "Electrabstraction."  

I can't do these pieces justice by allowing my insufficient word descriptions to faithfully capture for you what it is like to experience these free flowing, inspired improvisations for yourself. There is science here, as well as performance artistry and deep spiritualism. You can play this album multiple times and I can assure you that there is a peace and tranquility that emanates from this music. These guys want to transport the listener for a little while to a place where only music like this  can. There are cymbals, and gongs, bells and a Chinese transverse flute. There are Sarrusophones and contrabass saxophones, bass marimbas, an alto clarinet, and a string tremoloa. And of course there is a tenor saxophone, a theremin, a string bass, a drum and cymbal set, and and F Tuba. I am sure I missed something on this list, but most of all there is a superb sense of purpose, a sense that this music is healing, spiritual, evocative, exploratory and most of all creative. What more you could possibly ask for? In these times of stress and doubt,  supporting sincere art created with conviction and sensitivity like this is surely worth our support.

Guitarist Thom Rotella's "Side Hustle" A Magical Dynamic

Thom Rotella: Side Hustle: High Note Records

I have to admit, I am a sucker for good  jazz organ trio music. There is something so soulful about this music. The organ can strike you in a deeply visceral way that seems to be hard wired into your nervous system and to my way of thinking the guitar is perhaps the most perfect instrumental foil in this setting. It goes back to hearing the great matchings that we, the listeners, have been treated to over the years. 

Organist Pat Bianchi, in an article from Jazz Guitar Today from 2020, offered some dream or "matches made in heaven,"  combinations that stood out to him, "...focusing on the dynamic  between the guitarist and the organist."   Bianchi chose ten combos that did it for him. They include an eclectic group in no particular order: Grant Green/Larry Young, Joey DeFrancesco/Paul Bollenback, Melvin Rhymes/Wes Montgomery, Jack McDuff/George Benson, Don Patterson/Pat Martino, Jan Hammer/John Abercrombie, Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein, Jimmy Smith/Kenny Burrell, Dr. Lonnie Smith/Jonathan Kreisberg, and Charles Earland/Melvin Sparks. As you can see there are many incendiary possibilities when you match two like-minded musical spirits. Of course there are many other combinations that could easily be considered in this same category. Bianchi's work with Pat Martino and Paul Bollenback come to mind, as does Dave Stryker's work with Jared Gold, Brian Charette's work with Ben Monder and Larry Young's fusion work with John McLaughlin.

Recently, I discovered another matching that seems to possess that same magical dynamic that can exist between the guitarist and the organist, Thom Rotella's latest release Side Hustle, on High Note Records. Despite the fact that the group Rotella takes into the studio is more expansive than the trio format, this tasty gem, matches  LA based guitarist Rotella with Columbus, Ohio based Bobby Floyd. Through eleven of the twelve compositions on this satisfying outing, Rotella and Floyd find an almost telepathic sense of how to play together in such a way that they seem to anticipate each others moves.

Rotella originally hails from Niagara Falls from a musical family where he took lessons from a local teacher, John Morell, who by chance previously taught studio guitar legend Tommy Tedesco. With Wes Montgomery and Tedesco as inspirations, Rotella eventually honed his skills and attended Berklee where he was taught by, amongst others, vibraphonist legend Gary Burton. By the early seventies, Rotella made his way into Los Angeles where he started becoming a regular in studio sessions. Eventually, he met Tedesco who showed his fellow Niagara native the ropes about that side of the music business. Rotella's talent eventually made him too a first call studio guitar artist on the LA music scene.

Bobby Floyd (photo credit unknown)

Organist and Ohio native Bobby Floyd, a new name to me, started playing piano at the age of two. From 1984-85, Floyd played piano and organ in Ray Charles' Band across Europe and US until he left when his daughter was born. Floyd took over the piano chairs for both the Columbus (Ohio) Jazz Orchestra in 2004 and  the Count Basie Orchestra in 2012 besides manning his own organ/piano trios.

Besides the obvious simpatico Rotella and Floyd have on this album, the music is propelled by drummer legend Roy McCurdy's unfailing groove, the percussive nuance of Lenny Castro and is accentuated by the inventive horn men, Eric Alexander on tenor and Jeremy Pelt on trumpet.

Catchy "Who Dat?" is a tasty Rotella composition that showcases the guitarist's mellow octave playing, a direct lineage to Wes Montgomery. Floyd's soulful organ solo captures this musician's ability to evoke heart-felt expression. Don't forget McCurdy's roiling addition at the coda. There's something here for everyone from an easy swinging "Love for Sale" that will have you tapping your feet and feelin' so good, to Rotella's bossa-like "Pick Pocket" which features some infectious percussion by Castro and blues tinged work by Rotella and Floyd.

Lenny Castro (photo credit unknown)

"Side Hustle" is the title Rotella composition that carries references from both Kenny Barron ("Voyage") and Wayne Shorter ("Speak No Evil"). This quick paced song offers an appearance by the talented tenor man Eric Alexander, who adds another effective voice to the mix of Floyd and Rotella. Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind" has a respectful, gospel-like organ intro from Floyd before Rotella takes the slow-burner into a blues-based journey that is sensitive and  precise. Floyd's organ replies in return with some scorching lines that announces the gospel lesson is over and the blues has arrived.

The album continues with two Rotella compositions. The angular "Not So as the three soloists feed off each other's ideas. The moody, loose feeling "Mr. Moontanda," features the trio, and offers some of Rotella's more adventurous solo explorations. This one simmers with an understated confidence. A quiet gem, Floyd is also inspired to expand on his solo by the noirish feel of this one.       

Marvin Gaye's "Don't Mess With Mister T." is a 70's soul based acknowledgment of tenor titan Stanley Turrentine's influence on the music. Castro's percussion and McCurdy's nuanced drum work set the breezy feel. Rotella gets a chance to release his own side of guitar soulfulness on this one and boy does he feel it here. Jeremy Pelt's muted trumpet and Floyd's modulating organ just compliment this smoky piece to perfection. Soulful blues that doesn't quit.

Roy McCurdy (photo by Leon James)

As if we needed a rejuvenating reminder of McCurdy's legendary shuffle, "Roy's Groove" give the album a joyous adjourn into pure groove. Rotella and Floyd are invigorated here and you can't help but feel that dance is in the air.

Tadd Dameron's "On A Misty Night" has a slow-paced vibe that has an inherent swing to it. Rotella's guitar is so breezy and loose here, effortless. Floyd always finds a way to come at his solo at a different angle that surprises but never strays too far. When these guys play in unison, you feel like they have been playing together for years.

The classic "Alone Together" always seems to make it to many guitarists' rotation. With a unique repeating, staccato-like entre line before these guys get into the familiar melody at a swinging pace, the trio also takes a decidedly different way of treating the arrangement along the way. There is a lot of inventiveness at display here, making this classic both modern and a vehicle for expansion. Floyd offers the first solo, accentuating the changes and making this a cooker at what is an accelerated pace, before Rotella gets his turn to offer his own angular solo . McCurdy's groove over Floyd's bass lines is the armature on which these guys operate and man do they feel it here.

The closing composition is a creative matching of two songs, Jaco Pastorius' "Three Views of a Secret" and Charles Mingus' Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." This arrangement is just soooo good it's hard to imagine why these two songs were never matched before. The opening has an eerie, ethereal feel with Rotella's airy, moaning guitar lines-reminiscent, to me, of some of John Abercrombie's work-being overdubbed by his own gently strummed chords. Jeremy Pelt's muted trumpet enters here, just perfect, like a Siren's hypnotic voice drawing you into to the expanse of the unknown.  Castro's percussion sets the pace with some modulating organ by Greg Karukas and drum work by Kendall Kaye. The organ slowly rises the intensity of the proceedings before handing it off to Rotella. Rotella's guitar pierces the air with some slow, piquant lines that build the tension with a master's grace and with a blues inspired bite that is unmistakable. Just beautiful. The music returns to the clouds with Rotella's guitar before the group play the progressively fading coda in unison, Pelt's urgent, muted trumpet in conversation with Rotella's wispy guitar. Side Hustle  will be on your repeat play cycle for some time. It's just that good to listen to.