Although they sport one of those old-school jazz combo names that makes them sound like the sort of fusty, hidebound corporation that underwrites political-affairs roundtables on PBS ("This program is made possible by a grant from the Deardorf Peterson Group"), the Deardorf Peterson Group are at least as musically with it as hipper-named acts like the Bad Plus and E.S.T. (aka the Esbjörn Svensson Trio). Though the Deardorf Peterson Group start with a clean, melodic sound highly reminiscent of the West Coast cool artists of the 1950s and '60s (Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Vince Guaraldi, etc.), there's a hip, post-bop exploratory quality to their music that keeps them from ever coming close to mere smooth crossover pop-jazz, full of tasty licks and mellow grooves. The core of the Deardorf Peterson Group, logically enough, is bassist Chuck Deardorf and guitarist and composer Dave Peterson.
Buy CD
© 2010
