THE GROUP Daniella de Laurent - flute Maria de la Torre - congas Nils van Aarsdale - vibes Stefano Ricci - keyboards Johan Essbjörn - bass Phil Ødegård - drums Bob Burford - guitar ABOUT THE ALBUM This is an easy-listening jazz album. Mostly bossa. The septet consists of guitar, vibes, keys, flute, upright bass, congas and drums. (Total time: 55:04) This music is very much in the West Coast Cool Jazz mode, i.e., a minimalist, less frenetic, calmer style than the East Coast hard bop, more heavily arranged, and more often compositionally based. My formative years were the fifties, listening to just about everyone who recorded on the Pacific Jazz and Contemporary labels. Guys I was influenced by were the ones I thought got it right -- Ben Webster and Lester Young (tenor), Paul Desmond (alto sax), Jimmy Giuffre (clarinet), Red Mitchell (bass), Shelly Manne (drums), Billy Bauer (guitar), Chet Baker (trumpet), Gerry Mulligan (bari sax), Pete Jolly (piano), Don Elliott (mellophone), Lennie Tristano (piano) and Cal Tjader (vibes), to name just a few of the many. ABOUT THE ARTIST Bob Burford is a self-taught finger-style jazz guitarist who grew up with a guitar in the house. He was surrounded by uncles on both sides of the family who played Texas Swing and Hillbilly (that was before the term \"Country & Western\" was coined). He started playing in clubs at the age of 15 in the resort area of southwestern Michigan in the early 1950s. At age 17 he began working with show bands playing rhythm and blues and jazz. Later, he studied privately with renowned guitarist Charlie Byrd who, with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, introduced bossa nova to North America with their “Jazz Samba” album in the early 1960s. Byrd introduced him to John Marlow at American University in Washington, D.C., with whom he studied classical guitar. From there he went to Las Vegas where he worked for Al Ramsey who contracted a stable of musicians who backed all of the casino headliners. Ramsey later became director of entertainment at Caesar’s Palace. Burford\'s claim to fame comes more from who he did not work with rather than who he has worked with. He got the call from Ramsey\'s office to work the Sinatra show but he missed that date because his answering service failed to give him the message until 26 hours later. He is most proud of his two-year association with legendary guitarist George Barnes (Chet Atkins\' favorite guitarist) at Concord Jazz in California. That collaboration produced what came to be known as “the Concord Sound.” Burford is semi-retired now but still owns a private investigative agency in Nashville where he is actively involved in the music scene. ABOUT THE TUNES