Jazz Articles
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Rob McConnell and the SWR Big Band: So Very Rob
by Jack Bowers
Few big bands anywhere have a more far-reaching or well-deserved reputation for excellence than Germany’s SWR Big Band, which began life in the early ’50s as Erwin Lehn and his Southern Radio Dance Orchestra. When Lehn stepped aside in 1991 after forty years at the helm, the Stuttgart-based band didn’t miss a beat, swinging resiliently onward first as the SDR Big Band and later the SWR. It was in 1992, barely a year after Lehn’s departure, that composer/arranger/bandleader/valve trombonist extraordinaire ...
Continue ReadingThe SWR Big Band with Clark Terry: Jazz Matinee
by Jack Bowers
The irrepressible Clark Terry was a spry seventy–seven years old when this “Jazz Matinee” was recorded three years ago in Stuttgart, Germany. To hear him — on trumpet, flugelhorn or singing — is to summon forth images of a much younger man, so infectious is his boundless energy and unfailing good humor. About the latter, drummer Louie Bellson once said: “There has to be something wrong with anybody who can’t get along with Clark Terry.” As to his playing, Miles ...
Continue ReadingThe SWR Big Band with Phil Woods: Jazz Matinee
by Jack Bowers
Phil Woods has been such an imposing presence on the Jazz scene for so many years that one hesitates to say he is now at the height of his creative powers — but it is hard to imagine him playing any better than he does on this marvelous concert date recorded a scant five years ago with Germany’s world–class SWR Big Band. Besides giving an alto saxophone clinic on eight of the nine selections and playing clarinet on the other ...
Continue ReadingThe SWR Big Band Live: Featuring Jens Winther
by Jack Bowers
This is one of a series of recent in–concert recordings in which Germany’s SWR Big Band has welcomed accomplished guest artists, in this instance the award–winning Danish composer / trumpeter Jens Winther. “Featuring the compositions of Jens Winther” would be a more accurate description, as Winther wrote and scored each of the half–dozen numbers on the album but plays trumpet on only one, the ballad “Child of Nature.” Winther’s compositions have won him many prizes in European competitions, and his ...
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