For those not in the know, on his brand new album Blue Fire, guitarist Dave Stryker, who cut his teeth working with Jack McDuff and Stanley Turrentine before branching out on his own, brings his longtime trio of Jared Gold on organ and McClenty Hunter on drums into the historic Rudy Van Gelder recording studio for the first time.

The band’s communication, interplay, and groove is brilliantly brought to the fore on four new Stryker originals (including the burning title cut Blue Fire), as well as hip new takes on Lennon/McCartney’s The Fool on the Hill and Charlie Parker’s Dex- terity.

A beautiful reading of the Jerome Kern ballad The Folks Who Live on the Hill leads into the cooking 3/4 closer Summer Night. This recording was a longtime dream for me, Dave Stryker says. 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.

1. Van Gelder’s Place
2. Blue Fire
3. The Fool on the Hill
4. Dexterity
5. Waiting for Ruby
6. Back and Forth
7. The Folks Who Live on the Hill
8. Every Dark St.
9. Summer Night

Produced by Dave Stryker and recorded at Van Gelder Recording Studio, this expansively voluminous new set opens on the lushly sculpted Van Gelder’s Place and the boisterously forthright Blue Fire and then we get the luxurious The Fool on the Hill and the fervently-charged Dexterity.

Along next is the beautiful laid back balladry of Waiting for Ruby before we are once again strolling down groove lane with the brilliant Back and Forth, the languishing The Folks Who Live on the Hill backing that, the set rounding out on the funky ambiance of Every Dark St., coming to a close on the emotively impassioned Summer Night.

Official Purchase Link

www.davestryker.com