Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies (Strikezone Records)
Dave Stryker
Released January 2025
All About Jazz Best Jazz Albums of 2025
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m_p1JIyqGRVSrklrUPOBqww7Ue6orQt_Y
Spotify:
About:
Music and movies are the most captivating, the most arresting of all art forms. In their immersive magic they spark the inner powerhouse of emotions and dreams that illuminates the soul. Inspired by their 2023 Emmy-winning PBS special Wes Montgomery at 100: A 100th Birthday Tribute Concert, guitarist Dave Stryker and arranger and conductor Brent Wallarab decided to explore their mutual love of movies by recording 11 classic movie themes with a 30-piece studio orchestra.
Each musician brought an impressive jazz pedigree to the collaboration. Stryker’s resume includes significant stints with organist Jack McDuff and saxophonist Stanley Turrentine before establishing himself as a name and a force in his own right. Wallarab has co-led the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra for three decades, most recently recording his magnum opus to date The Gennett Suite, an expansive 21st-century big-band reimagining of classic jazz that Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and others recorded for the Gennett label in the 1920s.
Stryker and Wallarab decided to employ an unusual instrumental configuration for this album with a 30-piece studio orchestra featuring jazz quartet, strings, and trombones, punctuated by solo work from violinist Sara Caswell, saxophonist Greg Ward, trumpeter Mark Buselli, and trombonist Jim Pugh. The rich but always tastefully-restrained strength of Wallarab’s writing for brass and strings is underpinned by what Stryker calls a “take-no-prisoners, real New-York-style” rhythm section of Xavier Davis on piano, Jeremy Allen on bass, and McClenty Hunter on drums that keeps the groove flowing throughout the album, whatever the mood or tempo. The result yields much for everybody to enjoy, from the most seasoned jazz aficionado to the most casual listener, with a fresh repertoire that draws heavily on films from the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s—formative cinematic years for the two artists at the wheel here.
Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies is the product of months of creative sweat and toil. It’s also the sound of a new artistic partnership forged between guitarist Stryker and arranger-composer Wallarab. “He made it cinematic,” says Stryker of Wallarab’s writing throughout the album. “It’s just gorgeous. He’s such a great arranger and musician. Because of him, we came up with something really special.”
Wallarab is quick to return praise for the star and leading man of this production: “Dave’s reputation as one of the most swinging guitarists alive is accurate and well-deserved. But it’s his innate understanding of how to serve, through subtle nuance, each individual tune that is equally amazing. Every melody statement and improvised solo is perfectly shaped for the song and for the arrangement. His solos start, arc, and conclude as a perfect part of the composition, and he gets it right every single time.”
David Brent Johnson
Track Listing:
1. In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel) 5:34
2. Cinema Paradiso (Main Theme) (Ennio Morricone) 4:51
3. You Only Live Twice (John Barry / Leslie Bricusse) 5:57
4. Taxi Driver (Main Title) (Bernard Herrmann) 6:18
5. Theme From Shaft (Isaac Hayes) 6:08
6. Cavatina (Stanley Myers) 5:59
7. Flirtibird (Billy Strayhorn / Duke Ellington) 6:07
8. Low Key Lightly (Billy Strayhorn / Duke Ellington) 5:22
9. Moonglow (Irving Mills / Will Hudson) 6:14
10. Dreamsville (Henry Mancini / Jay Livingston / Ray Evans) 5:14
11. Edelweiss (Rodgers & Hammerstein) 4:53
Personnel:
Dave Stryker: guitar
Xavier Davis: piano & Fender Rhodes
Jeremy Allen: acoustic and electric bass
McClenty Hunter: drums
Orchestra
Brent Wallarab: arranger and conductor
Trombones: Jim Pugh (lead and trombone solo on track 9), Tim Coffman, Jeff Parker, Andrew Danforth, Richard Dole (bass)
Alto and soprano saxophone: Greg Ward (alto sax solo on tracks 4 & 7)
Trumpets/Flugelhorns: Mark Buselli (flugelhorn solo on track 7), Jeff Conrad
17 piece string section: Sara Caswell (concertmaster and violin solo on tracks 1 & 8)
Recorded and Mixed February 24th – 25th & March 10th, 2024 at Primary Sound, Bloomington, IN, by Jacob Belser
Assistant Engineers: Bri Cobbey and Jacob Baumann
Mastered by Michael Romanowski
Photography: Max Dibella
Graphic Design: Christopher Drukker Produced by Dave Stryker, Brent Wallarab and Greg Reynolds
Review:
If this recording were named “Dave Stryker Plays Bernard Hermann” (or Miklós Rózsa or Elmer Bernstein), well that would be just fine. They were all gifted composers who wrote film scores. The consensus would likely be that a musician like Stryker was hardly wasting his time, but Stryker With Strings Goes to the Movies hits the hopelessly middlebrow button. So how seriously anyone decides to take the results is anyone’s guess.
That would be a pity, for the tracks on this recording range from very good to OK; likewise for the orchestra, conducted by Brent Wallarab, and Wallrab’s arrangements. Perhaps it is just a particular affinity for an old classic like “Moonglow,” but the entire production is solid and listenable. “Taxi Driver,” a Hermann composition, is also very good. And anyone who likes Henry Mancini is going to enjoy “Dreamsville,” which simply never gets old.
Then there is Stryker himself, an exceptional player in the tradition of Wes Montgomery. Anyone who enjoys Montgomery will dig Stryker, whose influence is quite evident throughout. There is also not-too-shabby playing by Jim Pugh and Mark Buselli, among others, which imparts a polished feel and a sense of jazz improvisation throughout.
As a matter of personal taste, it has always been hard to fathom why jazz artists think they have to record with strings. But, perhaps as a matter of validation as ‘real’ musicians, they do. Typically, the results are indifferent, unswinging, or even soporific, but it is what it is. Hearing “Theme From Shaft” even recalls a bit of ‘disco fever,’ which may or may not appeal to a listener. De gustibus, as they say.
This is by no means a bad recording, even if it is not going to end up on anyone’s Stryker must-have list.
Richard J Salvucci (All About Jazz)
