Jazz Articles

UNT One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2019

by Jack Bowers
November 30, 2019

UNT is the University of North Texas, home to the country's flagship Jazz Studies program since its inception in the mid-1940s, and home as well to no less than a dozen undergraduate big bands, each one named for its daily rehearsal time. Pride of place goes to the One O'Clock ensemble whose special artistry has been safeguarded on record every year since 1967, providing aural evidence of why the university's leading big band remains unrivaled among its peers.

UNT Two O'Clock Lab Band: Kind of Two

by Jack Bowers
January 10, 2014

The University of North Texas, home to the country's oldest, most honored and, many would say, explicitly outstanding Jazz Studies program, has a number of topnotch big bands in the stable, each of which is named after its specific rehearsal time. While the One O'Clock Lab Band, which has been recorded most often, is best known among them, the distance between the top two or three is so slender as to be immaterial. Hard on the heels of the One ...

University of North Texas Two O'Clock Lab Band: The Best of the Big O

by Jack Bowers
May 14, 2005

The challenge when reviewing an album by any of the University of North Texas' superlative jazz ensembles is to find something to criticize. Perhaps you can; I can't. This is decisively true of the seventh recording by the UNT Two O'Clock Lab Band under the able direction of James Riggs, who has been at the helm for more than twenty-six years. There may be a misstep or two along the way, but none that my unrefined ears can detect. While ...

University of North Texas: (Counter-Part) Chamber Jazz, Vol. 1

by Jack Bowers
March 30, 2005

When one thinks of Jazz at the University of North Texas, it's usually in connection with one or more of UNT's exemplary big bands, which have been winning awards and earning applause for nearly half a century. But there's much more to the school's Jazz Studies program than synchronous reeds and shouting brass, as this largely engaging album of chamber jazz affirms.

The four groups represented here range from trio to sextet, all supervised by UNT professor Stefan Karlsson, a ...

University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2004

by Jack Bowers
March 2, 2005

Hard as it may be to believe, this is the twenty-third annual “Lab" album produced by UNT's preeminent One O'Clock Lab Band during Neil Slater's tenure as director, one for each year he has been at the helm. Even harder to accept is that the albums keep getting better with each passing year; Lab 2004 is a corker from start to finish, perhaps one of the finest the band has ever released. (But we say that every year, don't we?) ...

The University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2003

by Jack Bowers
March 17, 2004

Another year, another strenuous final exam for the University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band. What’s the grade? Let’s see . . . well (this is becoming rather monotonous), after adding up the score, it appears to be an unequivocal A-plus. In other words, the One O’Clock Band, now more than half a century old, continues to play an error-free game, as it has for most of those years.

Director Neil Slater, never one to tone down a test, ...

The University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2002

by Jack Bowers
March 2, 2003

The University of North Texas at Denton, home to the country’s oldest and most honored Jazz Studies program, has a number of excellent jazz ensembles, the cream of which is its One O’Clock Lab Band, here represented in the latest of a series of annual recordings that began nearly half a century ago. Since that time UNT has seen a large number of its alumni achieve notable careers as musicians and / or educators, and the young men who comprise ...