Sunday Music Muse Day - Tom Rizzio, Grant Green

This Sunday Music Muse Day finds me enjoying a beautiful picture perfect fall day. I must admit I was not inclined to anything but relax and enjoy it with a heavy amount of laziness.  To aid in my desire, I picked Tom Rizzo Day and Night.  Guitarist Rizzo is totally new to me, I picked up this CD on blind faith, him being a guitarist and my being familiar with some of the tunes, like Infant Eyes by Wayne Shorter.  Checking online after listening to it, I discovered Rizzo was a west coast musician, but with a solid Rochester connection. A radio profile states: "Rizzo’s passion for the guitar led him to teach as well as to perform with many of the jazz greats who were faculty members of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Then at age 25, he hit the road with the Maynard Fergusson Big Band. That gig lead to a 10-year dream job as one of the youngest members of "The Tonight Show" Orchestra with Doc Severenson"  I'm wondering if my musician friends who are Eastman instructors have crossed path with him.  This is a pleasant sounding session with solid playing.  I good find by any measure.

By second selection, find me rediscovering a jazz guitar legend, Grant Green First Session.  As the title notes this is a CD release of Green's first recording session on November 16, 1960. but the producer Alfred Lion shelved this session, and recorded Grant in January 1961, and released First Stand as his official debut album.  It hard to imagine what the producer found lacking in this.

All in all, a fine fall day.  Hope you got to enjoy it, too