Dom Minasi – 5 Desert Island Album Picks

1) Johnny Smith: Moonlight in Vermont – The first time I heard this record I heard the most beautiful sounding guitar playing and I went out and bought the record immediately and when I saw Johnny was playing at Birdland I begged my father to take me. I was 15 at the time.When I saw Johnny play, I knew right there and then that’s what I wanted to do the rest of my life.

2) Thelonious Monk: At The Backhawk – The first time I saw him play I knew there was lacking in my knowledge of chord substitution. I I went on this lifetime journey of teaching myself.

3) John Coltrane: My Favourite Things – because this is a perfect example of how to play out on changes and what a rhythm section should do along with the title tune and how he he changed it into a modal adventure.

4) Bill Evans and Jim Hall: Undercurrent – What I consider a perfect example on how piano and guitar can play together and not get in each others way.

5) Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch – I must have listened to and played along with this over 100 times. Eric understood atonality and how to include it in his wide interval playing. I learned so much from. There are so many important albums, but I am limited to 5!

Guitarist Dom Minasi is a native New Yorker and part of New York City’s illustrious Downtown Scene. An innovator in the field of improvisational Jazz, Dom wears many hats: musician, composer, arranger, educator, author, producer and owner and president of CDM Records, an independent record label.