Houghton's Jazz Debut
Bruce Von Stiers
I have been checking out albums by percussionist Steve Houghton. From The Manne We Love to Windsong, Steve's albums are well done and nice to listen to. I just got a chance to listen to his debut album. It has mostly traditional jazz tunes. The album is from Bluemoon Recordings, and is a title in their Signature series. In fact, the title of the album is Signature Series Presents; Steve Houghton.
The album has nine songs for 47 minutes of jazz tunes. It was produced by Steve, along with Jim Snowden and George Nauful. The artists that played on the album with Steve were Marc Johnson on bass, Time Hagans on trumpet, Billy Chiles on piano, Rob Lockart on saxophones and Tom Warrington also on bass. Then there was Andy Marin on trombone, Larry Koonse on guitar, Emil Richards on vibes and Brian Kilgore also helps out with the percussion.
First up is Stop Start. It has a lot of great trumpet in it. It was kind of a Dizzy Gillespie type of tune. Steve provided a lot of good background drums for this song.
The second song is One Hand. It is a little slower and has a sultry, back glance feel to it. That is followed up by a snappy tune called Sunday At The Hillcrest. This one is a Charlie Haden song that has some nice saxophone.
The fourth song is Astarte, which was written by Larry Koonse. It has a lot of pretty sounding xylophone music in it. Then there is a cover of the Bill Evans song One For Helen. It is one of those tickle the ivories songs, with the piano as the lead instrument.
Orion is up next. It was another song written by Koonse. This time it is the saxophone that stands in front of the other instruments. Then a tune by Billy Childs, Dreams is done. The trumpet is the lead and moves you to bop your head.
The album continues with a swing scat called Fuchsia Swing Song. It is real strong on bass. And the last song on the album is Shall We? It has a smooth jazz inflection with some great saxophone.
From this debut album, Steve Houghton moved on to larger and more varied projects. But this one shows just how deep Steve's jazz roots go. The album cover states that the album is a "collection of outstanding jazz." I agree and I'm sure you will to when you get a chance to listen to it.
© 2003 Bruce E Von Stiers