The Rippingtons featuring Russ Freeman was always less of a band than a Freeman solo record with guest musicians. Here he drops the pretense and stripps the band down its essential core: himself. The ...

That's not to say the Rippingtons' Wild Card is stomach-churning—just a somewhat limp rendition of the usual fare. Lead guitarist Russ Freeman's description of the album is commendable enough, ...

Ed Gordon talks with Russ Freeman, founder of the jazz group The Rippingtons, about the band's new CD and DVD, Twentieth Anniversary, which marks their two decades of making music.

Guitarist and bandleader Russ Freeman laughed as he considered the idea of an identifiable sound for his jazz group, the Rippingtons. “I remember a huge, longtime fan basically told me, ...

Smooth jazz hasn’t always been smooth, or even particularly jazz-like. And in recent years, the label has been more useful as a marketing tool than a description of the music it allegedly ...

Since then, The Rippingtons have recorded 16 albums. Freeman said another will be recorded next year, due for release in 2009. There’s been a lot of consistency with the group, he said.