Mike Joyce, JazzTimes, March 2008

Playing for Keeps finds veteran guitarist Bob DeVos playing to his strengths once again, favoring the kind of Hammond B3 grooves that he mastered while collaborating with Trudy Pitts, Jack McDuff, Charles Earland and other great jazz organists. 

Highlights? A brush-stroked, triple-meter take on “Body and Soul”  with its Coltrane-inspired contours and soulful lyricism; “And So It Goes” offers a modal framework for a series of swift and swinging improvisations by Alexander, DeVos and organist Dan Kostelnik, while “Wes Is More,” the DeVos-penned tribute to Montgomery, provides a smoking, riffing blues coda.

Elsewhere, DeVos’ impressionistic ballad “Speech Without Words” surfaces amid trio arrangements that showcase the bandleader’s unmistakable flair for arranging. Particularly enjoyable are the trio’s fluid and foot-tapping version of McCoy Tyner’s “Blues on the Corner,” nimbly punctuated by drummer Steve Johns, and the sensuous, insinuating recital of Monk’s “Ask Me Now.”

Entire Review

Bill Donaldson, JazzImprov, December 2007 

Harmonically astute and technically accomplished, Bob DeVos has recorded an eminently enjoyable, musically sophisticated album that infuses the music of “Playing For Keeps” with fresh and challenging ideas.  DeVos—while adhering to the guitar-drums-Hammond B-3 tradition —reworks several jazz standards in ways that cause the listener to hear them from different perspectives…An example is DeVos’s free version of “Freedom Jazz Dance” or his addition of a Latin feel to “Naima,” altering it to still a gorgeous, more rippling version. DeVos not only reaches out to audiences with rousing soulfulness, but also goes beyond the technical mastery of the instrument to achieve tonal warmth and a burnished glow that people feel, as in his most intriguing “Speech Without Words”.  Other of DeVos’s compositions show his groups’ mastery of the infectious groove of B-3 groups—“Pause for Fred’s Claws” is an irresistibly rocking hand-clapper.     

Entire Review (PDF)

Laurel Gross, AllAboutJazz-NYC-December 2007 

Bob DeVos’ fluid, sure and straight-ahead guitar rings as clear as any superbly played horn.  DeVos comes up with a fresh take on the traditions cemented by the musical brethren he admires.  DeVos weaves a multi-textured fabric of rich warm, modern sounds out of standards as well as his originals; all dashingly realized by his trio: John’s lively cymbalism amd Kostelnik’s energetic musings provide just the right mix of spunk and spice to support DeVos’ funky groove… Many standouts on this swinging journey, oh, it’s all good.        

Entire Review

Zan Stewart, Top Ten Jazz CDs 2006 Star Ledger

This is modern-minded yet rooty stuff, built around DeVos' deceptively complex yet easy-on-the-ear originals. A storyteller with a warm, penetrating tone, the guitarist says something on anything from a flowing blues variant like "Three Four Miss C" to the romping "Track and Field." Kostelnik and Johns are aces, too, as is guest tenorman Eric Alexander.  

Zan Stewart in JAZZIZ, The Guitar Issue, March 2004

A glowing sound.......

Bob Bernatos reviewing Groove Organization live at the Blue Note, 6-17-02, "On Step Lively, guitarist DeVos’ effortless, logically structured solo was a revelation."

Don Williamson, 9/02, jazzreview.com, "The ease with which DeVos brushes technique aside as an element mastered long ago…the musician and his instrument become joined means of expression…"

From Reviews of MATCH POINT, Ron McClure, bass, Bob DeVos, guitar, Jed Levy, tenor, Jeff Brillinger, drums -  SteepleChase:

Jazztimes, Dec. 2002, "excellent chemistry…DeVos comes up with the trickiest bop line of all…

David R. Adler, Allmusic.com, 12-11-02, "DeVos displays a fat tone and a fluid linear approach."

Martin Longley, Jazz Reviews, Summer, 2002, "…DeVos spreads luminescent showers."