Album Notes

"Larry McDonough's long-awaited new recording serves up divergent delights, from a reconstructed holiday chestnut to inside-out renditions of jazz standards, from harmonically and rhythmically altered traditional melodies to a trio of original tunes. With a feathery touch that recalls Bill Evans but with more fingers and a unique approach to time that makes the most worn carol or standard a new adventure, Simple Gifts proves to be anything but "simple"-but, for those fortunate enough to hear this music, it is indeed a gift."
--Andrea Canter, Jazz Police

"The Larry McDonough Quartet in a Minneapolis based ensemble of jazz virtuosos. Their new CD, Simple Gifts, finds them moving effortlessly through a diverse body of songs that includes Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and Steely Dan's "Aja". Where as other jazz groups may treat this wide range of material with a vulgar disregard for the original arrangements, Larry McDonough has instead chose to recast these songs with a variety of time signature and compositional changes that give material like "My Favorite Things" and the Gershwin classic "They Can't Take That Away from Me" a richness and fresh tone that seems unexpected yet obvious; as if his versions are the way the songs ought to sound."
--DP Wieland, Inside Pulse

Larry McDonough has performed with legendary saxophonist and composer Benny Golson, Trombonist Fred Wesley, and trumpeter Duane Eubanks, as well as a who's who of local jazz artists. His last solo piano release, "Tuscarora: Short Stories for Jazz Piano," was dedicated to the memory of Paul and Sheila Wellstone and benefits Wellstone Action. Released locally in 2003, it now is in its national and international release, playing from around the country, and from Australia to the Netherlands. Last spring McDonough premiered four compositions and arrangements for school orchestra and jazz ensembles in Minnesota and around the country. He also works as an attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis, representing low income persons with housing and consumer problems.

Sax player and Minnesota State University Mankato English Professor Richard Terrill, who received the 2004 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry, for his poetry compilation "Coming Late to Rachmaninoff" (University of Tampa Press, 2003), will read some of his poems within songs played by the group, as he did at the Dakota Holiday Concert last year. The quartet is rounded out by bassist, Mingus stylist and Minnesota State University Mankato Philosophy Professor Craig Matarrese, and drummer Chaz Draper ("propulsive percussion that suggested the drum kit had suddenly doubled in size" - Andrea Canter, Jazz Police).

Larry McDonough Jazz
651-398-8053, fax 612-827-7890
mcdon056@umn.edu
http://www.larrymcdonoughjazz.homestead.com