Mike Thompson: 6th Avenue

Composer and arranger Mike Thompson was in his mid-twenties when 6th Avenue, his debut album as leader of a big band, was recorded (in the mid-2020s) at Q Division Studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts, enlisting for the most part veteran Boston-area musicians whom Thompson had met and befriended while studying at the Berklee School of Music, from which he was graduated in 2021.

Although Thompson names Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Schneider and Igor Stravinsky as role models, you would be hard-pressed to discern their leverage in his compositions and charts, which are about as forthright and linear as big-band works can be. This is as true of Thompson's four original compositions as it is of the half-dozen well-chosen standards that together comprise 6th Avenue's diverse and flavorful menu.

Cole Porter is there (twice), as are Rodgers and Hammerstein, Mack Gordon, Harry Warren and Antonio Carlos Jobim. That is pretty fast company, even for a veteran composer, but Thompson gives it his best shot, showing on the one hand that he is a rising talent, and on the other that when it comes to writing timeless melodies he has a long road ahead—but ample time to understand and appreciate where he is going.

Thompson hits the right note quickly here, opening with one of the loveliest and most heartfelt paeans ever written, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's "All the Things You Are," and follows that with a Porter classic (and the album's lone vocal, by the assertive Charlize Vermaak), "Let's Do It." Thompson's first piece, the mid-tempo "Durango Drive," and his second, "Parisian Deception," are sandwiched around the sunny standard "There Will Never Be Another You" and lead to a second Porter mainstay, the satirical "Anything Goes."

The album's easygoing title song precedes Jobim's buoyant "Chega de Saudade," an upbeat reading of "Someday My Prince Will Come" and the meditative finale, Thompson's "May." A word must be said about the soloists, and that word is "stellar." Pianist Mark Shilansky is showcased on four numbers, trumpeter Bijon Watson and tenor saxophonist Mike Caudill on three apiece, with other engaging statements by trumpeter Jeff Claassen, soprano Ian Buss, trombonist Randy Pingrey and tenor Dan Rosenthal, plus a marvelous flute solo by guest artist Sarpay Özçağatay on "Someday My Prince Will Come." As for the ensemble, despite having had only one rehearsal before entering the studio, it rises to the occasion and nails every number. Drummer Mark Walker is especially strong, emboldening his rhythmic colleagues—Shilansky, guitarist Sal DiFusco and bassist Greg Loughman.

As debut albums go, 6th Avenue is well above par. The band is tight, the soloists creative, the charts impressive if not indelible, and the choice of material excellent, leading to the premise that Thompson should produce even more pleasurable music in the years to come.

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