submitted on Tue, 11/18/2008 - 07:04 in Jazz Group by Mike_Longo 
Pianist Eli Yamin is a communicator who believes jazz can foster a sense of community. His work is expansive and extroverted, populist in the best sense. As a teacher--he's now part of Jazz at Lincoln Center's education program--he's created jazz dramas and the dramatic impulse is a strong component of his music. So is swing. This album's title comes from a saying by a drummer who worked often with Yamin, the late Walter Perkins: "You can't buy swing, baby sweets. You can take the biggest name musicians and pay 'em a whole bunch of money and it's not necessarily going to swing." The rhythm section here--bassist Ari Roland and drummer Alvin Atkinson--definitely swings, benefiting from having recently made a State Department-sponsored foreign tour...
Source: allaboutjazz
Author: George Kanzler
