For a well-traveled veteran jazz cat who was born and raised in LA and lives and works now in Miami, it’s telling and fascinating that one of the grand emotional centerpieces on Russ Spiegel’s seventh album Nitty Gritty is the elegant and lyrical, easy swinging “Deep Brooklyn.”
For the versatile cosmopolitan composer/guitarist, the song he wrote long ago is as much an ode to the city where he was a mainstay for years as a song to help him cope with a rough spot in his life.
It’s also an anomaly on what is essentially an organ trio project, with Jim Gasior shining on acoustic piano instead of his featured instrument.
The stylistic diversity speaks as well to the many influences near and dear to Spiegel’s musical heart, from the breezy, simmering strut of Hank Mobley’s “Soul Station” and a brisk, samba-spiced romp through Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss” to the dreamy, atmospheric, Pat Metheny-esque twist on The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” a wild funk-rock approach to Coltrane’s “26-2” and mystical, bluesy exotica of “Besame Mucho” – an ode to the Latin culture of his adopted hometown of Miami, where he teaches at Florida International University and Miami Dade College.
Complementing all the snappy re-imaginings, Spiegel contributes three other originals, most prominently the edgy, rock-jazz fusion fired title track “Nitty Gritty” and the only “true blues” on the album, the intoxicating and harmonically intricate Ahmad Jamal-influenced “Lonely Buddha.”
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