Jazz Articles

University of Colorado Jazz Ensemble 1: CU Over the Rainbow

by Jack Bowers
December 7, 2006

Over the past five years the University of Colorado's Jazz Studies program has earned no less than 13 Student Music Awards from Down Beat magazine. I say “earned because (a) the competition is gaining strength each year; and (b) this is one close-knit and hardworking group of undergrads, as one can readily verify on CU Over the Rainbow.

Of course, any disc that opens with Porter and closes with Gershwin merits extra credit from this impartial observer, especially when played ...

The University of Central Oklahoma: Jazz Ensembles I and II, 1991-2000

by Jack Bowers
April 4, 2003

A two-disc anthology of surprisingly sharp and powerful big-band jazz by the University of Central Oklahoma’s Ensembles I and II, recorded -- with one exception -- during a nine-year span of concert performances at the Wichita (KS) Jazz Festival. Surprising only because we weren’t familiar with the UCO program, which clearly has flourished under directors Kent Kidwell and Lee Rucker, who have shrewdly advised their students to lay aside any reticence and go all-out on every note. Given the inevitable ...