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Miho Hazama's M_Unit: Beyond Orbits
by Chris May
Beyond Orbits is the fêted composer and conductor Miho Hazama's fourth album with M_Unit. She founded the band in 2012, two years after moving from Tokyo to New York and while she was still studying for a masters in jazz composition at the Manhattan School of Music. Hazama released M_Unit's first album in 2013. The band's third, Dancer In Nowhere (Sunnyside, 2019), was nominated for a Grammy. Among her other achievements, Hazama was in 2019 appointed chief ...
Continue ReadingChuck Owen: Renderings
by Pierre Giroux
Renderings by Chuck Owen and The WDR Big Band is a remarkable jazz album that showcases the artist's mastery as a composer, arranger and bandleader. This release stands as a testament to Owen's innovative approach to jazz music blending traditional elements with modern influences to create a unique and captivating sonic experience. The album title is an apt description of the musical approach taken by Owen, as he focuses on the works by other composers along ...
Continue ReadingChuck Owen and the WDR Big Band: Renderings
by Jack Bowers
Anyone who uses YouTube to search for contemporary jazz must surely be familiar with Germany's blue-ribbon WDR Big Band, as it is abundantly represented at the site. Bearing that in mind, it may come as no surprise to those seekers (and others) that the WDR's latest recording, on which it is paired with the esteemed Florida-based composer and arranger Chuck Owen, offers another master class in big-band artistry, or how to make even the most arduous charts seem deceptively simple. ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens and the WDR Big Band: Samba Jazz Odyssey
by Jack Bowers
One could probably count the number of big-band albums featuring a harmonica player on the fingers of one hand and leave some unused. Only one other springs to mind here, and it was released so many years ago that the names have long since been forgotten. And so it is indeed a genuine pleasure to hear the virtuosic Hendrik Meurkens performing with one of the world's foremost large ensembles, Cologne, Germany's exemplary WDR Big Band. More than ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Samba Jazz Odyssey
by Edward Blanco
One of the leading proponents of bossa nova and samba in the jazz world, New York-based chromatic harmonica virtuoso Hendrik Meurkens continues his love affair with Brazilian music with the big band sound of Samba Jazz Odyssey, his seventh release on the ZOHO record label. This time Meurkens is joined by the world-renown WDR Big Band from Cologne, Germany where the maestro and ensemble record nine tracks and seven of his most popular compositions arranged by Grammy-nominated conductor Michael Phillip ...
Continue ReadingBob Mintzer: Soundscapes
by Richard J Salvucci
Well, what is your pleasure? Swinging charts? You have them. A tight big band? Yes, that certainly, and more. Terrific soloists? In abundance. A blend of genres that go from straight ahead to Latin to funk? That is all here too. The only thing absent, and all respect to Bob Mintzer, is excitement. To be honest, many contemporary big bands doing studio recordings have a similar issue. The level of musicianship is astronomical, but something is not there. You wonder ...
Continue ReadingBob Mintzer & WDR Big Band Cologne: Soundscapes
by Jack Bowers
Saxophonist Bob Mintzer, a New Yorker who left home long ago to see the world, is a professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music and chief conductor of the world-class WDR Big Band in Cologne, Germany, with whom he has recorded Soundscapes, a luminous showcase for his singular talents as composer, arranger and soloist. As anyone who is familiar with Mintzer--through big-band recordings, his quartet the Yellowjackets or other avenues--clearly understands, he will ...
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