Bob DeVos, Shadow Box

Bob DeVos gets everything in gear for his fifth album as a leader. He put together some grooving originals and a couple by others you don't hear covered much (Wes's "Twisted Blues", Mel Torme's "Born to Be Blue") then gathered some hiply swinging cats and let the "tapes" roll.

Shadow Box (American Showplace 5922) is all that. Bob finds the right mix of heat and feel with Dan Kostelnik on the B-3 organ, Steve Johns on drums, and, for half the program, Ralph Bowen on tenor sax.

It's straight ahead hard bop today with the groove and the changes in mind. Bob solos excellently, fluidly, and very coherently with some fine strings of note-ing and groovy chords. Kostelnik counters him with some very classic bopping organ and lines that are not cribbed from Jimmy Smith records. Bowen swings and blows well. And Johns is the right drummer.

DeVos is a hell of a nice guitarist. Just listen to this and you'll hear it.

George Cotsirilos Trio, Variations

In the zone of mainstream, there are a fair number of guitar voices out there. I get quite a few to audition and I am glad for that. But I cannot cover all of them, of course. Today's guitarist belongs here because his chordal sense is very fine. He also writes some good vehicles for his trio. This is the George Cotsirilos Trio's third release, Variations (OA2 22104).

It features George and the bass-drum team of Robb Fisher and Ron Marabuto, good players for this intimate session, which keeps the swinging going throughout.

The Cotsirilos single-line solo way is not entirely the notes you might expect. He seems more confident in the chordal solo mode but either way he is up to something good, not something simply reworked from the classic past. So listen and hear another way to do it all.