The Trinity Big Band

The Trinity Big Band: Cuban Fire

by Jack Bowers
June 1, 2001

I’d forgotten what a marvelous piece of work the late Johnny Richards’ Cuban Fire suite is, and am grateful to Bobby Lamb and the intrepid young musicians at Trinity College for such an emphatic reminder. Lamb, an Irish–born trombonist who once played in the Stan Kenton Orchestra and remains a great admirer of Kenton’s music, chose to honor his former employer by breathing new life into Richards’ seven–part suite based on such traditional Cuban rhythms as the bolero, abierta, guajira, ...