Hi
a new review for this Greg's CD on air on Radiovinilemania in Italy

http://www.vinilemania.net/vGREGCHAKO.htm

Only Great Jazz from Italy :-))

Ciao ciao P


courtesy: http://www.allaboutjazz.com

Where We Find Ourselves
Greg Chako | CPB (2006)
By Michael P. Gladstone

Guitarist Greg Chako has led quite an interesting life. In addition
to being a musician and composer, Chako has been a business
entrepreneur both within and outside of the music industry. His life
experience has led him to travel widely and explore different
cultures.

After three years of study at the Berklee School of Music, he moved
to New York. Taking jobs in restaurant kitchens, Chako discovered
that he had expertise in food preparation, and later, he found that
he had a real talent in jazz music promotion for festivals and live
concerts. Chako returned to his native Cincinnati, where he taught
music, led a band and acted as a booking agent.

Relocating to New York again, Chako found his musical career on hold
due to carpal tunnel syndrome. His travels took him to Hong Kong,
where he married an Asian woman whose suggestion of Tai Chi worked
to ameliorate the wrist problem. In 1994, Chako moved again to
Singapore, and with a steady musical job there, he widened his
musical and entrepreneurial status by forming and operating Chako
Productions. This organization offered a wide variety of
entertainment promotion and production services.


The guitarist has also recorded five albums. On the early ones, he
worked with a repertoire of standards and jazz standards. Later,
with Integration (2000) and Integration II (2001), he decided to
emphasise his own compositions. Where We Find Ourselves is his most
ambitious work yet, with two discs and all original compositions.


On several of these pieces, Chako has taken the melody and chord
structure of existing songs and altered them so that a new
composition emerges. The most obvious of these is his beautiful
ballad "Takachan" and the reference to Johnny Mandel's "Emily,"
which it greatly resembles. On "It's Only You," an attractive bop
tune featuring Pat Halleran's trombone, the original source material
was the Jule Styne "It's You Or No One." LIkewise the pleasant
opening tune, "Voyage Down," is based upon Steve
Swallow's "Eiderdown"; and "Love Goes Forth" was originally Cole
Porter's "Love For Sale."


There are, however, many original tunes here that aren't built
around previous musical references. On both "Winter Solstice"
and "You Of All," bass clarinetist Robbie Belgrade explores some
dissonance on the instrument during some avant garde blowing. There
are two bossa nova melodies, including "Wave of Love" and "Creators
of Life," a vocal piece by Kaleb James. James also sings on the
title tune, with original lyrics by Chako that reflect both his
wife's illness (she died from cancer) as well as the period
afterwards.


Although the ensemble is quite good and it negotiates these tunes as
if they were in some existing jazz standard songbook, the most
interesting musical aspect of the album is Chako's guitar. Each of
his solos is lyrical and well worth waiting for. Greg Chako is a
significant player who writes attractive music, and it would be
interesting to see him venture back to some of his older material on
his next album.



Track listing: Voyage Down; Wave Of Love; Winter Solstice; Takachan;
Love Goes Fourth; Creators of Life; April Wind; It's Only You; Long
Summer Samba; You Of All; Josephine; Dirge For Didge; 7-Up; Takachan
(take 2); Where We Find Ourselves.

Personnel: Greg Chako: guitar; Mark Tourian: bass; Mark DeRose:
drums, percussion, congas, bongo; Andy Bevan:tenor and soprano
saxophone, flute, didgeridu; Robbie Belgrade, bass clarinet,
pandeiro, tabla, percussion.

Style: Mainstream/Bop/Hard Bop/Cool