The Retro Wizard!!

Vincent Herring has had a very smooth and successful career and played along side some of the biggest names in jazz: Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Nat Adderley, Larry Coryell, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy, Mingus, Nancy Wilson, and others. Taking up the sax at 11, he was granted a music scholarship to college, then moved to West Point to join the U.S.M.A. band Jazz Knights. Close proximity to the NY scene soon sucked him in, and there you have it. 'Mr. Wizard' has an early 60's L. Morgan/ Coltrane/ W. Shorter classic feel, with 6 out of 9 tracks being self composed. However, 2004 is it's creation and release year...Wha? Coulda fooled me. Even the cover looks reminiscent of Francis Wolff. Vincent's quintet honestly pulls off a retro jazz sound with maturity and ease, and it's rather difficult to truly replicate jazz and soul in the 50, 60, and 70's because of the pressure cooker of a society there was at that time with open racism and sexism, domestic outcry for civil rights, and war at every turn. From intensity comes intensity. I'm not saying today lacks any real turmoil. Rather, that that exact kind of strife no longer exists within those societies (at such an extreme) which originally produced jazz. Well, I'm gonna shut up and let you get to it, Jack.