Jazz

Check it out, hot hip hop Saturdays, New York urban jazz

Honolulu's only

Jazz Club dedicated to jazz with live jazz six nights a week, closed Sunday

Food, Beverage and Music

1661 Kapiolani Boulevard

Just west of Atkinson

945-0800

* Check for surprise artists

Awesome, man!(click here) Last minute booking, don't miss it, the newest from Jazz Minds: Tempo Valley pre-New Year's, pre-CD release party this coming Saturday, December 30. Come on down.

Restaurant workers click here!

Always, always... there is an extensive food menu. Great pupus or a late dinner.

Son Caribe Saturdays

Surprise guests, Sinbad

DeShannon Higa

Thursdays

Rocky Brown

Surprise!

Amber Ricci

Tuesday

Louie Mundy

Yes, add me to your email list!

December Schedule

Jazz Minds Art & Café

Mondays, December 4,11,18 Nu Swing Project with Waimanalo’s Maria Remos, 6-man band jazz, R&B, hip hop, 9 p.m. – 1 a.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Tuesdays, December 5,19 Amber Ricci with Bobbie Nishida and Dan Del Negro, 9 p.m.-midnight., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Tuesday, December 12, Gilbert Batangan Quartet, 9 p.m.-midnight., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Tuesday, December 26, Rachel Gonzales and Les Peetz, jazz, 9 p.m. - midnight Jazz Minds Art & Café 945-0800

Wednesdays, December 6,13,20,27 Russ Lundgren Jazz Quartet with Dave Yamasaki, 9 p.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Thursdays, December 7,14,21,28 gr00ve.imProV.arTiSts with DeShannon Higa, urban jazz, 9 p.m. – midnite, Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800 (Randy Wheeler sax/video, Abe Lagrimas drum, Maria Remos vocals)

Fridays, December 1,8,15,22,29 Buddy Mak Jazz Quartet, live jazz, 9 p.m. - midnight, Jazz Minds Art & Cafe, 945-0800

Saturdays, December 9,16,23 Son Caribe, latin jazz, 9 p.m.,,Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Saturday, December 30, Tempo Valley pre-New Year's, pre-CD release party, 9:30 p.m. - 1:30 a.m., Jazz Minds Art & Cafe 945-0800

Note: Jazz Minds will be closed Christmas and New Year’s eve and Christmas Day Monday, December 25

Special

Buddy Mak Jazz Quartet

Friday

Maria Remos & Nu Swing

Mondays

Honolulu Jazz Quartet

Abe Lagrimas

Rich Crandall

November 2006

Russ Lundgren Jazz Quartet

Straight ahead and swinging

Wednesdays

A few years ago, when I first fell in love with jazz, there was no such thing as straight ahead jazz. There was only jazz.

Oh, there was be bop and Dixie, swing and big band. In those days, blues was jazz. There was no rhythm and blues. And I grew old enough to see new jazz, experimental jazz and fusion. Now there’s jazz and jass, jazz samba and hip hop jazz.

But if you want straight ahead, old fashioned jazz, tune in this November with the Russ Lundgren Jazz Quartet. Russ is a young guy. A drummer’s drummer around town. He doesn’t have the name recognition of the older guys but he plays real steady.

If you like that high hat up-beat with a running bass line, this is your style of music. And one of Russ’s major talents is his ability to scare up other great musicians who people haven’t heard of.

For instance, his bass player is a Navy E-5, but his close cropped hair and receding hairline make him look much older and his playing sounds it came right out of the Thirties.

Jeremy Ward hails from Utah, where his father was a band teacher. He learned jazz listening to tunes on the tractor at his family’s home farm. Later he joined the Navy, who shipped him to Newport, RI, where he earned a master’s degree in performance bass.

That means he plays and doesn’t philosophize.

Dave Yamasaki is the other steady hand in the quartet. He hails from the Bay Area where he was known as “a first call guitarist for studio and live performances.” “It’s no surprise to me since I sat right next to him where I heard and felt every note he played,” said one fellow musician in the Pete Escovedo band. Yamasaki has CD called From Me to You.

Lundgren usually scratches around for a fourth. He likes different sounds. He often doesn’t have to go far. His father John, the music director at Le Jardin School in Kaneohe, turned him on to jazz in the 8^th grade. Ever since, they’ve been playing together.

“By the time Russ was in high school, he was getting more gigs than me,” smiles the older Lundgren. “Just remember, it’s the ‘Russ Lundgren band.’”

Another example of a fourth was Russ Lundgren’s choice of Louie Mundy as a singer on a Saturday gig. Louie was trained as an opera singer. But she fell in love with jazz.

Now it’s all swinging business. I think she’s absolutely the best in Honolulu. Better than Azure.

She has a great voice. Huge. Great phrasing. But also a great quiet presence, soft, happy, very confident. And she talks to the audience as if she has respect for them.

It’s wonderful jazz.