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Album Review

The Awakening Orchestra: Volume II: To Call Her to a Higher Plan

Read "Volume II: To Call Her to a Higher Plan" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
November 9, 2020

Tra gli orchestratori e bandleader emersi di recente Kyle Saulnier è uno dei più interessanti. Il suo esordio con l'Awakening Orchestra nel doppio This Is Not the Answer (Innova 2014) ha rappresentato una sorprendente rivelazione per padronanza di scrittura e spregiudicata sintesi di elementi diversi, inclusi il free e il rock. Con un taglio espressivo un po' diverso, il successivo Atticus Live! (Biophilia 2016) ha confermato la versatilità del leader nel coniugare altri mondi musicali (ovvero le musiche ...

Album Review

Awakening Orchestra: Atticus Live!

Read "Atticus Live!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 2, 2016

Sorry. If this is the direction in which big-band jazz is moving, please apply the brakes as quickly and gently as possible so that this listener may exit the train. When it comes to big bands, some members of an older generation cling to standards that must always be upheld. Not swinging is from time to time a forgivable sin, depending on the circumstances; plodding erratically forward with a minimum of charm and no clear purpose in mind is less ...

Album Review

Awakening Orchestra: Interlude: Atticus Live!-The Music of Jesse Lewis

Read "Interlude: Atticus Live!-The Music of Jesse Lewis" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 29, 2016

On the heals of the excellent debut This Is Not the Answer, Vol 1 (Innova Recordings, 2014), composer/conductor Kyle Saulnier leaves the writing credits to featured guitarist/composer Jesse Lewis on Interlude: Atticus Live!-The Music of Jesse Lewis. Not a regular member of Saulnier's Awakening Orchestra, Lewis had recorded each of these tracks on his similarly named Atticus (Self-Produced, 2008). Saulnier was intrigued by the notion of recreating these tunes with his twenty-piece jazz orchestra and set about to capture that ...

Album Review

Awakening Orchestra: Vol. 1: This Is Not the Answer

Read "Vol. 1: This Is Not the Answer" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
October 6, 2014

Questo debutto di Kyle Saulnier è uno dei lavori orchestrali più ricchi e appassionanti degli ultimi anni, paragonabile per fantasia e freschezza a Infernal Machine, il disco d'esordio di Darcy James Argue. Compositore e polistrumentista, Saulnier è nato nel Connecticut, ha studiato composizione alla Berklee e alla Manhattan School of Music e risiede da anni nel Bronx, New York. Per quasi sette anni ha scritto e provato partiture con questa formazione -dando sporadici concerti in locali decentrati-e dopo ...

Album Review

Awakening Orchestra: Vol. 1: This Is Not the Answer

Read "Vol. 1: This Is Not the Answer" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 8, 2014

Connecticut native Kyle Saulnier is both a life-long student and a working teacher of jazz. The multi-instrumentalist and composer leads the 20-piece Awakening Orchestra's debut, This Is Not the Answer and it is as rare an achievement as Carla Bley's historic Escalator Over The Hill (ECM, 1971). The latter work--more jazz-operetta in orientation and prescribed in its thematic flow--nevertheless shares many similar elements and the Awakening Orchestra has created no less of a monumental event. Subtitled, “Of Conflict ...