Following Footsteps in Bloomington, MN

This outing from trumpeter
Jeff Jarvis
is quite commercial, with mundane originals, a few
pop
/
R&B
tunes, and
Thad Jones
'
"A Child Is Born"
all being given consistently unimaginative treatment.
Jarvis
is a technically skilled trumpeter with a warm sound and there are some strong players on this set, including tenor saxophonist
Ernie Watts
,
Shelly Berg
on keyboards, and guitarist
Grant Geissman
. But the arrangements are run of the mill, none of the themes are memorable, and the rhythm section generally sounds as if everything was written out ahead of time. If some of these cuts received radio airplay at the time, then perhaps this CD could be considered a success at its goal. But since the disc soon went out of print, it seems to have fallen short on all levels. ~ Scott Yanow