Search - Doug Raney :: Backbeat

At last Raney recorded with a Hammond B-3 organ.....

Terje Biringvad | Oslo, Norway | 02/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Danish SteepleChase Records owner and producer, Niels Winther, managed to keep the Hammond B-3 organ outside of the recording studios for more than 25 years of unknown reasons. But the same Niels Winther capitulated when guitarist Dave Stryker demanded having organist Larry Goldings on his "Blue Degrees" album. Next SteepleChase recording artist out to persuade producer Niels Winther for an organ date was the excellent guitarist Doug Raney (son of the legendary guitarist Jimmy Raney) who has been living and recording in Denmark for more than 20 years and with the same number of solo albums for SteepleChase under his belt. Doug Raney is probably most known for his excellent guitar work with likes of NHØP, Chet Baker, Jesper Tangaard and Bernt Rosengren, but also his classic duo albums with father Jimmy Raney.



Doug Raney's impressive guitar skills and technique both as a soloist and accompanist with full bodied crisp chording, makes Raney a perfect jazz organ guitarist with a very personal sound. Pity it took him 20 years to make his first organ date with organist Joey DeFrancesco - the only organist he wanted to record with for this album according to producer Winther. To complete the trio Raney gave the drumsticks to Billy Hart whom he recorded with at his first SteepleChase album in 1977. Pairing Billy Hart's drumming with a Hammond B-3 organ, magic happens instantaneously - also on "The Backbeat". The trio takes us through standards like "Love for sale", "Prelude to a kiss" with great authority and improvising skills in respect to the compositions. Then the trio turn into originals from both father and son - "Jimmy James" and "Lee" (tribute to Lee Konitz) - both tunes with attractive melody lines and changes that gives a lot of space for both Raney and DeFrancesco, where the organ is kept tastefully in the background through Raney's LONG solos (not on minute to short...) then to explodes into single line solos that only DeFrancesco can do. Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon and Horace Silver penned the last three lesser known compositions - "Driftin", "The BackBeat", "Purple Eyes" - to complete this 65 minutes hard swinging trio album. One interesting observation on this recording is how sparse DeFrancesco is using the drawbar registration possibilities on the organ.



Excellent album and a good starting point to explore the recorded guitar artistry of Doug Raney.

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