Desert Island Jazz
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  • Adam Shulman (2010)

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    Adam Shulman is that rara avis, not just a native Californian, but a native San Franciscan. He been turning heads and ears on our music scene since he finished at UC Santa Cruz in the early years of the millennium, having studied there with both the late Smith Dobson and also the trumpeter and arranger Ray Brown. Initially studying classical piano, Adam attributes his initial attraction to jazz to what he modestly terms "horrible" sight-reading skills.

    Since then, he's played with countless Bay Area musicians, such as Andrew Speight, Marcus Shelby, Kitty Margolis, Michael Zilber, Anton Schwartz, Bobby Hutcherson, and Paula West, and, less close to home, Miguel Zénon and Stefon Harris.

    Both of Adam's own recordings as a leader ("On Second Thoughts" from January ’07, and "Patterns of Change", from 18 months later) feature not only his friend from their high-school days Dayna Stephens (with whom he shares a birthday), but also his own compositions, exclusively. To do the latter is often euphemistically termed "courageous", but Adam's melodic lines are so engaging and strong that the total novelty and the lack of the familiar signposts become advantages rather than the opposite.

    The repertoire of Adam's recordings notwithstanding, Adam likes nothing better than a good standard: indeed, three of his desert island choices have the word "standard" in the title.
    Pick Artist Album Song Label
    # 1 Bill Evans Interplay Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams OJC
    # 2 Art Tatum Standards Sweet Lorraine Black Lion
    # 3 Ella Fitzgerald Cole Porter Songbook, Vol. 2 I Concentrate on You Verve
    # 4 Hank Mobley Soul Station Remember Blue Note
    # 5 Miles Davis Porgy and Bess Bess, You Is My Woman Now Columbia
    # 6 Keith Jarrett Standards in Norway Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing ECM
    # 7 Sonny Clark Standards Can't We Be Friends? Blue Note
    # 8 Hank Jones Trio There's a Small Hotel Fresh Sound
             
    Book Ernest Hemingway, something long
             
    Luxury Item A surfboard
    Castaways by dateNo castaways found for 2023.