Guitarist Dave Stryker has released a new video for “The Fool on the Hill” via Strikezone Records. The track appears on Blue Fire: The Van…
For the album, Stryker reunites his longtime trio, Jared Gold on organ and McClenty Hunter on drums, and brings the group into Rudy Van Gelder’s studio for its first session there as a unit. The set includes four Stryker originals, including the title track “Blue Fire,” plus new interpretations of Lennon and McCartney’s “The Fool on the Hill” and Charlie Parker’s “Dexterity.”
The album also features Jerome Kern’s ballad “The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” followed by the 3/4 closer “Summer Night.”
Stryker shared: “This recording was a longtime dream for me. I had always wanted to record at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio but never got the chance when he was alive. Thankfully, Rudy’s assistant Maureen Sickler and her husband Don have taken over the operation to keep it preserved. When you walk into this amazing space, the history, not to mention the incredibly warm sound of the huge room, are palpable. Given the story of Van Gelder’s—all the Blue Note and CTI records and of course Coltrane’s A Love Supreme—it would’ve been easy to be overwhelmed. However, with my 20-year working trio of Jared Gold (playing the original Jimmy Smith/Larry Young Hammond organ) and McClenty Hunter on drums, we were inspired and captured some of the magic. We can now add Blue Fire to the long list of albums recorded at this legendary temple of jazz.”
Source: worldmusiccentral.org