Jazz Articles about Andy Gravish

About Andy Gravish

Album Review

There are times when even the Best Laid Plans are unable to generate quite enough horsepower to realize their full promise and purpose. New York City-based composer and arranger Jon Schapiro clearly had a plan in mind for the third recording by his large ensemble, Schapiro 17. The plan evidently included broadening the horizons of contemporary big-band jazz by writing adventurous new charts while taking a second look at themes composed by others and giving them a fresh coat of ...

Album Review

George Gee Swing Orchestra: Winter Wonderland

Read "Winter Wonderland" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 4, 2023

After an absence of several years the New York City-based George Gee Swing Orchestra is back in a recording studio, doing what it does best--swinging merrily through a Winter Wonderland chock-full of holiday favorites that kids of all ages can relate to and appreciate. Gee formed his first band while still in college at Carnegie Mellon University, one day after interviewing Count Basie on the campus radio station. After moving back to New York City, where he ...

Album Review

Schapiro 17: Human Qualities

Read "Human Qualities" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 14, 2021

Following its splendid premiere recording, an exploration of Miles Davis' unrivaled album Kind Of Blue (Capitol Records, 1959), composer/arranger Jon Schapiro's 17-member ensemble broadens its horizons on Human Qualities, pairing seven of the maestro's astute and adventurous charts with the Roberta Flack best-seller, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." This time around, Schapiro proves that he need rely on nothing more than his own considerable experience as a jazz artist to create an album that expresses his point ...

Album Review

Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

Read "New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
September 7, 2020

Miles Davis' album Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) is the best-selling jazz album of all time and has been highly influential for the last 60 years. Most of its five tracks have become jazz standards and have been interpreted time and again. However it is rare to see the entire album reworked to the extent that Jon Schapiro and his big band, Schapiro 17, do here. The tracks undergo extensive retooling, expanding into big band arrangements that carry on the ...

Album Review

Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

Read "New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 10, 2020

2019 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the Miles Davis sextet's acclaimed album, Kind of Blue (Columbia). While the tributes didn't exactly pour in, New York-based composer / arranger Jon Schapiro took it upon himself not only to revisit that classic session but to re-orchestrate it for a large ensemble (the Schapiro 17) and flesh it out with half a dozen compositions of his own and another by pianist Roberta Piket. In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, all of ...

Album Review

Piero Delle Monache: Welcome

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 15, 2010

È nato nel 1982 Piero Delle Monache, e appartiene a quella generazione di musicisti capaci di tradurre in personale attitudine una ricca quantità di informazioni, stilistiche e di impostazione, ottenute grazie allo studio intenso e alla immediata messa in pratica delle proprie possibilità. Welcome è il suo primo lavoro con il proprio nome scritto in grande, e racchiude - nel breve volgere di sei brani stipati in poco meno di mezz'ora - un'ampia varietà di soluzioni formali. Il saxofonista di ...

Album Review

Rosario Bonaccorso Quartet: Travel Notes

by AAJ Italy Staff
March 3, 2010

Gli appunti di viaggio di Rosario Bonaccorso sono undici fotografie che mettono in primo piano le giornate, i luoghi, i volti delle persone care. Un album dei ricordi aperto senza imbarazzi. A sfogliarlo si trovano pagine per le riflessioni divertite e la nostalgia. Il contrabbassista non punta a stupire, anzi realizza un disco fortemente personale, quasi privato. Con Andrea Pozza al pianoforte, Andy Gravish alla tromba e Nicola Angelucci alla batteria, il Rosario Bonaccorso Quartet si muove con leggerezza fra ...