What People Are Saying About Blues for Pekar
“It’s great….up to the minute and right on time….Krivda brings originality to his band…”
“..his (Krivda’s) melodicism, unceasing output of original ideas, and impeccable sense of swing should win over plenty of listeners…a sensitive balladeer.”
- Chris Robinson (Downbeat Magazine)
“Krivda plays himself and he plays with great authority and swinging imagination. His ballad treatment of More Than You Know packs a wealth of musical ideas into the hard-yet-wide sound that is Krivda’s trademark.”
“Every so often something truly spiritual comes to me to review, that will move both your spirit and your artistic sensibilities. Jazz sax man Ernie Krivda contains this musical power in his playing……What a gift.”
- George Carroll (Night Life Exchange)
“A great disc….some American MUSICAL Splendor in Pekar’s honor…Krivda….a unique player…that isn’t like anyone else…”
- Jeff Simon (Buffalo News)
“The most distinctive saxophone sound in the business….celebrates the jazz sound that rose in that long industrial stretch between Buffalo and Chicago…”
- David Dupont (Sentinel-Tribune, Bowling Green, OH)
“Ernie Krivda is an underrated Colossus,a mean swinger,a jubilantly,unabashedly, exultantly, old-school; tell-a-story type of improvisor.”
- Kim Heron (The Detroit Metro Times)
“This disc is a honey…a dynamic record that celebrates continuity by breathing new life into the jazz tradition…Key to that is Krivda’s stamina….endless creativity…”
- Carlo Wolf (Ohio Authority)
“This album has great musicality running through its veins…..Highly recommended.”
- The Borderland Music Watch
“…An extraordinarily outstanding jazz music CD…….Ernie Krivda is the real deal.”
- C.J.Bond (Jazz Music)
“Its CD’s like Blues for Pekar that keep jazz vital and exciting…”
- Dan McClenaghan (All About Jazz)
“It’s hard to imagine Pekar not being excited with this tribute by his hometown’s hard swinging tenor saxophonist Ernie Krivda….A strong date…with the sort of aggression and warmth Pekar would loudly have applauded.”
- Aaron Cohen (Downbeat Editors Choice, July 2011)
“Once you hear his gorgeous tone and the astonishing fluidity of his improvisations,you have to agree with Harvey Pekar when he said “Krivda is one of the best tenor saxophonists in the world.”
- Wilbert Sostre (Jazz Times)
“The new release (Blues for Pekar) is especially attractive and likely to have a wide apeal to fabs of all that is good in today’s jazz.”
- Bruce Crowthers Reviews (Swing2bop.com)
“Beside being a comic book legend,Harvey Pekar was a first rate judge of jazz talent. Ernie Krivda is the real thing.”
- Jeff Krow (Audiophile Audition)
“Krivda swings mightily through a set that skip,sing,and warmly sway to the pulsating beat of the rust belt in its mid 20th century heyday, captured to wonderful old-school effect by engineer/producer Michael Seifert.”
- Matt Marshall (All Thats Jazz)
“Ernie Krivda is one of the best jazz tenormen in the world jazz critic Harvey Pekar once stated.If you need further proof Krivda deseves praise buy his album Blues for Pekar.”
- Charles Latimer (I Dig Jazz)
About Ernie
“No doubt about it, Ernie Krivda is one of the originals of the tenor saxophone” wrote Bill Donaldson for Cadence Magazine about the legendary jazz musician whose 6th decade on the music scene is already filled with a new burst accomplishment with across the board critical acclaim for his 2011 CD Blues for Pekar. The Capri Records release was dedicated to the late Cleveland author and jazz commentator Harvey Pekar who had proclaimed Krivda as “one of the best jazz tenor men in the world.” This recording came right on the heels of two other highly acclaimed CD’s, Live at The Dirty Dog and November Man (both on CIMP). These recordings continue a period of intense activity, achievement and recognition. In 2009 Ernie Krivda received the Cleveland Arts Prize award for lifetime achievement in music. The banner year ended with Krivda being awarded a CPAC (Community Partnership of Arts and Culture) Fellowship worth twenty thousand dollars. In a career that spans over 50 years, Krivda has earned the respect of his peers and the accolades of critics. His very personal and distinctive improvisational style, along with his unique compositions, has been documented on over 30 recordings under his name and many others as a guest artist. In the last decade and into this one, he has set a most prolific pace with eleven releases since 2003 and more to come.
Ernie Krivda was born in Cleveland, began his music studies at age 6, and attended The Cleveland Institute of Music before going on the road. Since that time he has shared the stage with some of the great names in jazz. He was mentored by musicians such as Cannonball Adderley, played in Quincy Jones orchestra and performed with artists ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to Jackie Wilson. Krivda has made his home in Cleveland for most of his life but his music takes him across the United States, and into the concert halls of Europe and Japan. He also is a highly respected teacher and clinician who mentored many young jazz musicians working on the world jazz scene.
In the past few years Ernie has performed at Jazz Festivals in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Villach Austria, Chicago and Washington DC. At another festival appearance he recorded his newest CD “Live at the Tri-C Jazz Fest” (on Cadence Jazz Records). In 2005 that same Tri-C Jazz Festival presented Krivda with its “Jazz Legends Award”, as they echoed the sentiments of so many in the jazz world that proclaim that “Ernie Krivda is the real thing.”
About the CPAC Fellowship
Ernie Krivda was a winner of a Creative Workforce Fellowship of $20,000. The fellowship was funded through the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture using Cuyahoga County tobacco tax revenue. The Fellowship provided the initial investment for the Blues for Pekar project.
It put to work local and regional musicians, video/audio technicians, recording studios, public relations people and visual artists. It is a showcase for Krivda’s long-standing belief in the quality of the contributions of regional jazz musicians in the music’s history and in its present.
Behind the Scenes: Making of Blues for Pekar
Jazz sax legend Ernie Krivda narrates this video piece, which is dedicated to the life and memory of famous music critic, media personality, and longtime friend, American Splendor’s Harvey Pekar.
About The Band & Team
Harvey Pekar
Harvey is known primarily for American Splendor, his cult classic comic books that chronicled his day to day life as an ironic Cleveland everyman. They led to his late-in-life fame in an autobiographical movie and a series of highly charged appearances on the David Letterman TV show. Not as publicized but very important to Harvey was his reputation as a highly respected Jazz critic/commentator for publications such as Downbeat Magazine and Cadence Jazz.
Michael Seifert, producer
Michael Seifert is a multi-platinum award winning producer,engineer,composer and arranger. He has worked with such diverse artists as Tori Amos,Gerald Lavert, Bone-Thugs in Harmony, Robert Junior Lockwood and Francis Ford Coppola. He has produced, composed and recorded music for Fox, CBS, MTV, and Sports Illustrated. Since establishing his Analog Arcade Studio in Cleveland, he has worked to bring to the fore the great but underrated talent pool in Northeast Ohio and the surrounding Great Lakes region.
Claude Black, piano
One of the last remaining Detroit bebop piano masters in the line of Hank Jones,Barry Harris,Tommy Flanagan etc. Claude has played with many of the great jazz performers.He has been integral to the groups of luminaries such as Donald Byrd, David “Fat Head” Newman, Aretha Franklin, and Dinah Washington. He remains a potent soloist in the tradition and one of its greatest rhythm section players.
Marion Hayden, bass
Marion is the Matriarch of the Detroit Jazz scene. A keeper of its flame and a model of its legacy. Any band she plays in will feel good because she is in the rhythm section, Detroit’s jazz bass tradition is identified by Paul Chambers, and its R&B strain by James Jamison (of Mo Town fame). Marion’s playing has elements of both and she has taken the Detroit groove and made it her own.
Renell Gonsalves, drums
Renell Gonsalves is the son of Duke Ellington’s star tenor sax soloist, Paul Gonsalves. He is a joyous player with great instincts. His “swinging conversersation” within the band is becoming a lost art. Originaly from Chicago he has been a fixture on a very potent Detroit scene for years, working with organist Lyman Woodard, flautist Alexander Zonchic, and vocalist Etta James.
with Sean Jones, trumpet
Sean Jones from Warren, Ohio has become one of the most accomplished and versatile young musicians in jazz. He has been lead trumpet player with The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and a jazz soloist of International acclaim with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Marcus Miller. He is a recording artist for Mack Ave Records, leading his own groups and performing his own compositions. He is also the Music Director for both The Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra and The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and holds the position of Professor of Music at Duquense University.
and Dominick Farinacci, trumpet
Dominick Farinacci from Cleveland, Ohio has already released numerous recordings as a leader both in the U.S. and Japan, the latest being Dawn of Good Bye on Eone records. His lyrical playing and mature presence caught the attention of Wynton Maralis while Dom was a still student at The Julliard School in New York getting him a spot on a Marsalis PBS special. Farinacci has performed with Ernie Krivda many times and has been on five of his Cadence/ CIMP releases. He is currently touring with his own quartet and builing a reputation as powerful presence on the jazz scene.