Jazz Articles

Bill Cunliffe: BACHanalia

by Jerome Wilson
July 25, 2017

This is another entry in the durable “jazz meets the classics" subgenre with pianist and bandleader Bill Cunliffe leading a large ensemble through a fun program featuring mostly classical works and familiar standards.The classical adaptations start off with Johann Sebastian Bach's “Sleepers Awake" played with crisp, muscular drive by the band. Cunliffe and trombonist Bob McChesney provide tight, intricate solos and Denise Donatelli follows the melody on top with a bubbly wordless vocal that recalls The Swingle Singers. ...

Bill Cunliffe: BACHanalia

by Jack Bowers
June 24, 2017

As the title denotes, pianist Bill Cunliffe and his ensemble take a swing (literally) at the great Johann Sebastian on BACHanalia, pivoting as well toward the music of C.P.E. Bach, Sergei Prokofiev, Manuel de Falla, Cole Porter, Oscar Levant and Cunliffe himself. In spite of its classical veneer, this is at its core a jazz session, and as such embodies the essential elements one would expect from such an enterprise. To phrase it another way, Cunliffe transports these masters of ...

Eileen Bertsch: Eileen

by Jim Santella
October 21, 2005

With her program of popular songs and show tunes, Eileen Bertsch brings back memories. They're the songs that we've come to know and to love. Her strong voice, backed by a studio orchestra and strings, forces itself through with a powerful will.

As if acting on stage during a musical drama, the singer projects deliberately, while interpreting each selection full steam ahead. Bertsch overwhelms with “Over the Rainbow" as she belts its soaring melody out powerfully. No one ...

North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra: Benny Goodman -- The Swing Collection

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1999

During the Swing Era there were two clarinetists who stood above the rest, at least in terms of mass popularity — Artie Shaw and the King of Swing himself, Benny Goodman. Even though Goodman, who organized his first big band in 1934, has been gone for 13 years his popularity has seldom waned, and the music he championed is played by groups both large and small from coast to coast and around the world. The well–rehearsed North Carolina Jazz Repertory ...

North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra: Duke Ellington -- A Centennial Collection

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 1999

I’ve heard many tributes to Duke Ellington during the centennial year of his birth, but few that were more enjoyable than this impressive survey of his music by the relatively young and almost unknown North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra. It’s too bad that most people outside the Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill area, where the orchestra makes its home, will in all likelihood remain unaware of its existence. While the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Carnegie Hall Jazz Band get most of the ...