Dave Stryker Movies

by George Kanzler

Guitarist Dave Stryker has forged a long career firmly rooted in soul jazz. Early on, he paid his dues playing with soul jazz B3 organist Jack McDuff and with leading soul jazz tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. In recent years, he has led an organ trio and recorded a series of albums in a collection he’s named Eight Track, which includes many soul jazz and R’n’B/Soul hits from the 1970s and 1980s. But as a teenager in the 1970s, Dave wasn’t just, or primarily, into music. He was also an avid film buff, a fan of the burgeoning indie film movement of the era, as well as such studio-based franchises as 007, James Bond. That love of film has persisted throughout his life, leading him to call his latest recording project “one to check off my bucket list."

Goes to the Movies, Dave Stryker with Strings, Orchestra arranged and conducted by Brent Wallarab (Strikezone Records), features eleven tunes from ten different movies, all but one featuring a string and brass (trombone choir) orchestra, with Stryker and a rhythm section, occasionally joined in solo roles by violinist Sarah Caswell; Greg Ward, alto sax; Jim Pugh, trombone; and Mark Buselli, flugelhorn.

The album is an outgrowth of a collaborative project by Brent and Dave in 2023 at Indiana University (where they were both on the jazz faculty) to honor the centennial of guitarist Wes Montgomery, a native of Indianapolis. Brent wrote orchestral arrangements for a string orchestra to highlight Dave’s guitar tribute to Montgomery, and the pair wanted to continue that orchestra-soloist relationship on a recording project. But Dave did not want it to be a Wes Montgomery project. “I just love Wes too much," he said. But one of the tunes from the tribute, “Dreamsville,” the theme from the TV series Peter Gunn and movie Gunn, prompted Dave and Brent, also a movie buff, to come up with Goes to the Movies.

The album has a definite 1970s, CTI Records vibe, reflected in the lush string-horn arrangements, pianist Xavier Davis’s contributions on electric piano (a favorite of producer Creed Taylor, the CT of CTI), and Dave’s playing that is highly reminiscent of Wes Montgomery. “Wes was a big influence on me,” says Dave, who counts the guitarist as equally important to him as movies in his formative years.

Dave Stryker will be playing versions of the movie themes on Goes to the Movies at Birdland Theater, January 24–26, with his Organ Trio (Jared Gold, organ; McClenty Hunter, drums) and tenor saxophonists Troy Roberts (January 24-25) and Rob Dixon (January 26).

###