Cool Smooth Jazz From The Dangling Success

Bruce Von Stiers

There is a jazz band known as The Dangling Success. Their members have all performed and recorded with some of the world’s most famous entertainers. But they are getting a whole bunch of accolades as a quintet. To that end, the band has recorded a great smooth jazz album called City Life. Although this isn’t the band’s first album, it is being touted as the best so far.

The members of The Dangling Success are Mark (Dr. Sax) Niekrewicz, Gioron Wilkins, Sr., Mike McDonough, Paul Rossman and Daniel Odescalchi. Mark plays all of the saxophones for the band. He has been known to play with such bands as the Big Blue Big Band. Gioron was once a guitar player for the Isley Brothers. He plays guitar for the quintet. Mike is on bass. Paul is the drummer. He’s worked on a lot of albums, including last year’s EP release by The Erin Hobson Compact. And Daniel does all of the keyboard work.

The album has eleven regular tracks and two radio cuts of songs offered earlier in the playlist.

City Life, the title track, is up first. It is a nice smooth jazz groove with slick guitar and good sax.

Catch The Groove is a hip swaying tune with some cool sax.

Moderately paced is the next song, Still Together.

A subtle R & B groove can be found in Better Late Than Never.

The sax in Finally Home reminded me a bit of Eric Marienthal.

Morning Sunshine is a light, body moving song.

An interesting song on the album is Beast of Burden. The band does a great job with a simple, yet enticing jazz treatment of the classic Rolling Stones song.

There is a killer groove in Private Party. This is my favorite song on the album.

Heaven Sent is a subtle, slow dance song.

Europa has slow and haunting sax. It is also a slow dance song.

Last Call is a fun toe tapper.

The last two songs are radio cuts of Better Late Than Never and City Life. Even though they are shorter than the full album cuts, both keep the integrity of the songs.

The Dangling Success has just become one of my favorite jazz outfits. City Life is definitely going into my Smooth Jazz collection along side albums by The Rippingtons, Paul Taylor and Eric Marienthal.

If you go by the band’s web site, you’ll find show dates, see videos and be able to listen to tracks from City Life. You will also be able to order a copy of the album. The official site for The Dangling Success is http://danglingsuccess.com/

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