Jazz Articles about Benny Benack III

About Benny Benack III

Album Review

Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band: Soul Conversations

Read "Soul Conversations" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 9, 2021

Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.'s Big Band comes out swinging on its debut recording, Soul Conversations, thundering through Michael Dease's incendiary arrangement of the Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis flame-thrower, “Two Bass Hit." For more such heat, however, the listener must move forward to Track 5, John Coltrane's impulsive “Giant Steps," thence to Track 9 for Charles Turner III's earnest homage to “Harlem Harlem Harlem," on which he doubles as vocalist. That's not to say that everything in between is ...

Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

by Jack Bowers
April 10, 2021

Jazz connoisseurs who lean toward big bands that swing as earnestly and often as the renowned architects of the epic big-band era should find plenty to cheer about on Kinetic, the debut recording by New York-based pianist, composer and arranger Steven Feifke's audacious and fiery ensemble. This is a band that fires on all cylinders—but it couldn't even leave the garage unless Feifke supplied the fuel. With one exception (noted below), Feifke's intense and high-powered charts neatly pave the way, ...

Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

Read "Kinetic" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
April 8, 2021

Assimilare la tradizione per poi creare cose originali. È questo il percorso che hanno seguito e continuano a seguire i musicisti jazz, in forme e approfondimenti diversi. A 30 anni esatti il pianista Steven Feifke è ancora al primo passo ma in questo scintillante debutto orchestrale dimostra di avere tutte le carte in regola per sviluppare percorsi originali. Kinetic è infatti un esempio del miglior modern mainstream orchestrale, elaborato sulle lezioni di Thad Jones e Mel Lewis, ...

Album Review

Benny Benack III: A Lot of Livin' to Do

Read "A Lot of Livin' to Do" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
September 25, 2020

Non ancora trentenne Benny Benack III conferma il talento espresso nell'esordio di tre anni fa One of a Kind, con un album frizzante e coinvolgente, dove ritroviamo la baldanza del trombettista neo bop e l'esuberanza del vocalist in equilibrio tra crooner e vocalese. Il rischio d'essere scambiato come un epigono di Harry Connick Jr. e Michael Bublé è concreto ma Benny ha molte frecce al suo arco: ottima educazione musicale (doppia laurea alla Manhattan School of Music), ...

Album Review

Benny Benack III: A Lot Of Livin' To Do

Read "A Lot Of Livin' To Do" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 11, 2020

Benny Benack III does it all. A trumpeter, vocalist, writer and arranger with a swaggering soul and the chops to back up the panache, he's clearly done his fair share of living already. He may be young—only at the tail end of his twenties, believe it or not—but he seriously has his act together in every way, shape and form, as this album proves. Fronting a tight quartet with Takeshi Ohbayashi on piano, Christian McBride on bass ...

Album Review

Benny Benack III: One of a Kind

Read "One of a Kind" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
October 3, 2017

Although he's got fine chops as a trumpeter, Benny Benack III also has serious ambition as a vocalist, as demonstrated on his first record as a leader, One of a Kind. It takes a good deal of self-confidence to pull off such a feat, and to his credit Benack does an admirable job of it. When one also considers his skills as a composer and arranger, it's clear that Benack is a strong musical presence more than capable of continuing ...