CD REVIEW

Zack Danziger: Sun is All We Need

Co-Produced by Zack Danziger and Joel A. Martin for Jazzical-Divanucci Music Productions, Engineered at Spirit House by Danny Bernini
Personnel: Zack Danziger-guitar, vocals, bass Joel Martin-piano, keyboards, background vocals
Jed Levy- saxophone, flute Paul Lieberman-saxophone, flute, percussion Barbara Ween-background vocals, David Dunaway-bass, Terry Silverlight-drums

The eclectic and electric Northampton based musician Zack Danziger has achieved a bit of a coup de grace with the release of Sun Is All We Need. He offers here an amalgam of styles that range from irresistibly delectable pop to jazz for the fundamentalist jazzhead in your life, often within the same tune. A formidable force on guitar himself, Mr. Danziger has assembled an A-Team of musical wizards to wring the most out of his compositions and render them whole. What’s more, with pianist/producer Joel Martin and engineer Danny Bernini in the house, the music has been fully realized with all that a state of the art modern recording experience can offer.
Zack’s compositions are autobiographical and at times cosmically cryptic, with grooves so deep you could twist an ankle, and hooks you could hang your hat on; this is by all means accessible music. Many of the tunes are suite-like in their construction, abounding in shifts of time and tone. The title cut for example, features four discrete sections, with subtly shifting harmony vocals and more obvious and effective changes in feel (4/4 funk, 3/4 reggae, a blistering rock solo) , and an out chorus of simple acoustic guitar accompanied by improvised whistling that nicely evokes the warmth of the sun. Zoom, a light and bright wordless vocal in a Brazilian bag, borrows a chord progression from Coltrane’s Giant Steps and a familiar hook from Marcos Valle’s Summer Samba to good effect.
From the straight ahead jazz bag, Zack has included an original bop tune Eleven Sharp, the Kurt Weill composition Speak Low (lyric by Ogden Nash for you trivia buffs), and Charlie Parker’s classic blues Now is the Time. On his original, Zack takes the road less traveled, using a trio of his guitar, Joel Martin on piano and Paul Lieberman on saxophone. Unencumbered by the usual bass & drums rhythm section, the trio cruises at a high altitude with lots of sympatico interaction between three highly intuitive players. This one must have been a lot of fun. On Speak Low, a jazz staple often done in a latin/swing mode, Zack throws a change-up by using 3/4 meter on the latin section, thus breathing some new excitement into the tune. The swing section is indeed swung, and the tune winds up with a jam section initiated by Joel on piano that underscores the spontaneity of the session. The Parker blues, which derived from a children’s novelty song called The Hucklebuck in a sense goes back to its roots when Zack gets hold of it, with a new lyric that he roughed out in a 3rd grade classroom in Brooklyn where he was teaching music. The tune builds gradually from Zack’s a cappella rendering to the full band with solos.
Taken as a whole, Sun is All We Need is an excellent characterization of the man behind the music. It represents about fifteen years of wrestling with the Muse, and reflects the creativity, spontaneity and musicianship of Zack Danziger.
-Richard Mayer
1-2-10

visit WWW.ZackDanziger.com -