Jazz Articles

The Birdland Big Band: Storybook: The Music of Mark Miller

by Jack Bowers
October 7, 2025

Storybook, the third recording by the New York City-based Birdland Big Band, is subtitled “the music of Mark Miller" and is designed to showcase compositions and arrangements by that multi-talented artist who doubles (triples) as the band's lead trombonist. Miller wrote or co-wrote half of the album's 10 colorful and impressive numbers (11 if one counts Joaquin Rodrigo's brief “Concerto de Aranjuez," which serves as an introduction to Chick Corea's “Spain") and arranged all of them. Miller's ...

Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra: Dream Wheel: Live at the Sound Lounge 2006 with Florian Ross

by Edward Blanco
December 31, 2007

Australia's Jazzgroove Association has been at the forefront in promoting the country's jazz scene for some time. The Association, along with the Australian Arts Council and band member/co-producer, altoist David Theak, join forces to present Dream Wheel, a hard-driving big band project from the sixteen-piece Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra. Recorded live at the Sound Lounge in Sydney, the band produces a modern contemporary jazz sound anchored by sophisticated and challenging big band arrangements.

The album is essentially a collaborative ...

The Steve Hunter Band: Dig My Garden

by John Kelman
November 28, 2007

If Chick Corea's Return to Forever had stayed closer to the Latin and Spanish roots of Light as a Feather (Polydor, 1972) while turning somewhat more electric rather than being completely plugged in, it might have sounded something like Steve Hunter's Dig My Garden. The year the Australian bassist spent living in Spain has only further cemented an already deep-seated interest in the country's rich musical heritage, but with a quartet of fellow Australians whose roots extend far and wide, ...

Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra: Dream Wheel: Live at the Sound Lounge 2006 with Florian Ross

by John Kelman
November 26, 2007

In jazz, there's rarely pressure to make the next album bigger than the last. There can often, however, be a self-imposed drive to make it different. Sydney, Australia's Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra--the flagship of its Jazzgroove Association, a musicians' collective that's been cultivating a strong jazz scene there for a decade--released one of 2006's best big band records, The Mothership Plays the Music of Mike Nock (Jazzgroove Records). On Dream Wheel, the Mothership collaborates with a younger and, consequently, less-proven but ...

Mike Nock & Dave Liebman: Duologue

by John Kelman
March 24, 2007

New Zealand-born pianist Mike Nock and American saxophonist Dave Liebman first crossed paths in the '60s when Nock was living in the US, first coming to attention with the proto-fusion group Fourth Way. They haven't seen each other in over two decades, last working together on Liebman's The Opal Heart (Enja, 1982). Recorded live at Australia's Wangaratta Jazz Festival in the fall of 2004, Duologue has the intimate and unassuming feel of two artists for whom the years melted away ...

Theak-tet: Old School

by John Kelman
January 20, 2007

Despite its relative geographic seclusion--or perhaps because of it--a closely knit jazz scene has emerged in Australia over the past decade, most notably in Sydney, where the Jazzgroove Association has grown from humble beginnings into one of the country's most important arts organizations. Led by saxophonist David Theak, the association's flagship Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra released one of last year's best recordings, The Mothership Plays the Music of Mike Nock (Jazzgroove, 2006). Theak has also been leading his own smaller Theak-tet ...

James Muller: Kaboom

by John Kelman
December 30, 2006

Geography is the only reason that James Muller isn't as well-known as he should be. Having spent most of his life in his native Australia, the guitarist, now in his early thirties, has racked up a significant number of releases including Sonic Fiction's Changing With the Times, pianist Mark Isaac's Closer and the recent JazzGroove Mothership Orchestra's The Mothership Plays the Music of Mike Nock. Fusion fans may know him for his recent work with drummer Chad Wackerman. Every project ...