Jazz Articles about Brian Pastor

Jim Levendis: The Big Band Project

by Jack Bowers
August 28, 2022

Jim Levendis knew that time was running out. In his mid-seventies, the veteran Philadelphia-area trumpeter and educator had contracted ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), the effects of which were rapidly sapping his energy and ability to function. As the disease progressed, Levendis confided in Len Pierro, a band mate in the Ward Marston band, that there was one thing he would dearly love to do while he was still able: record some of the big-band arrangements he had written over the ...

The Brian Pastor Big Band: Common Men

by Edward Blanco
April 6, 2007

One sampling of trombonist Brian Pastor's Common Men will be enough to convince you that there's nothing common about the music you've just heard or the musicians that played it. It's an especially pleasurable big band outing and debut for The Brian Pastor Big Band, a nineteen-piece Philadelphia-based ensemble delivering one swinging performance.

The album includes a mixture of standards and originals from members of the band. Pastor contributes two new charts, beginning with the lively “T.S.C. Blues Or A ...

The Brian Pastor Big Band: Common Men

by Jack Bowers
July 15, 2006

Yes, I'll admit I'm growing old (the senior discount is now a given), but never too old, I hope, to appreciate a big band that's clearly bursting with energy and enthusiasm and swings like every note may be its last. By the way, that's a thumbnail sketch of trombonist Brian Pastor's Philadelphia-based ensemble and Common Men, a dynamic and unequivocally dazzling debut that has left me grinning from ear to ear.

Any session that opens with a pulse-quickening arrangement of ...