The Larry Slezak Hammond Organ Band will once again be performing at Ovations tonight, November 13th.  Please join us for
a night of great jazz music and fun.  The downbeat is at 8, so don’t be late!
See you there!

Great News for Tierra

In the mail last week I opened my NARAS Ballot. I have been a voting member since 2002. Every year since then, I open that ballot and look to see one of our projects on it. Well what do you know? I went to the voting site and found that the Larry Slezak album “No Worries” is up for nomination for the Best Instrumental Jazz Album, Individual or Group. I dug a bit deeper and read that both Larry Slezak and Jose Miguel-Yamal had both received a nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Soloist for the song ‘You’ve Changed” from the Slezak album. If that’s not enough, I made it through the first round in the production category for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

It was truly a thrill for me to cut this album. The entire album was made up of musicians from the local AFM 65-699. What a great testament to the fine musicianship found here in Houston, Texas.

Wish us luck in the Grammy process. Please go to itunes and download this great record or go to www.larryslezak.com and hit the “buy it now” link.

The link below is just a glimpse of what you will find on this fine album.

Cheers,
Glenn Wheeler, engineer

You’ve Changed
You’ve Changed Download

Larry Slezak plays his sax for an adaptation a tune by legendary jazz trombonist Frank Rosolino. Slezak plays next on Sept. 4 and 25, 2009 at Ovations Night Club in Houston.

Music from this unfamiliar artist results in a welcome surprise. Wow! Where has this musician been hiding? New York born and bred saxophonist/educator Larry Slezak, who delivers his very first album as leader with No Worries, and what an album it is. With a dynamic selection of standards—from Neal Hefti’s oft-recorded “Girl Talk,” Carl Fischer’s love ballad, “You’ve Changed,” to a riveting treatment of Jose Feliciano’s “Chico and the Man,” the theme song from the old television series with Jack Albertson and Freddie Prinze. The vibrant music here, clearly sustains a good measure of swing, superbly bolstered by dicey hard-driving charts and a striking performance from the leader and extended cast. A longtime resident of Houston, Texas, Slezak, is the premiere Jazz saxophonist in the Houston Jazz community who also performs with the Houston Symphony and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, as well as serving as the Director of Jazz Ensembles at Rice University. For this first effort, Slezak records with a core quintet comprised of guitarist Clayton Dyess, bassist Thomas Helton, Jose-Miguel Yamal on Hammond B-3 organ and piano, and son Joe Slezak on drums. There are two orchestral pieces (sixteen-piece string orchestra on four cuts,), straight ahead and some bluesy sounds here. This is an impressive beginning for a truly outstanding musician.

It does keep inching up on the Roots Music Report Jazz Chart. Right now it’s sitting at number 18 on the chart. That’s up from number 31 a couple months ago.

In other news, KGLT jazz radio in Bozeman, Montana is still ranking No Worries within the top 10 of popular artists! Right now it’s number 7 on the station’s list.

Sheri Lavo is the super-talented vocalist who sings with my band, the Larry Slezak Hammond B3 Organ Band. Here we are performing at Ovations Night Club in Houston in June 2009.