Jazz Articles about Bob Brookmeyer

Stan Getz: Jazz Giants '58

by Samuel Chell
April 11, 2008

Although one could quarrel easily enough with the title, this meeting rises above the usual jam session produced by impresario Norman Granz for his Verve label because of the personnel. Gerry Mulligan, Sweets Edison, Oscar Peterson (practically the “house pianist" at Verve), Ray Brown--these are inimitable and personal instrumental voices in American music, and each speaks with sufficient authority to be considered “leader" on the date. But it's Stan Getz who makes the lasting impression.

Getz--a brilliant, “natural" ...

Bob Brookmeyer and the New Art Orchestra: Spirit Music

by Jack Bowers
July 18, 2006

Clever title this, even though perchance unintended. Bob Brookmeyer (in his 76th year) and the impressive New Art Orchestra have recorded their fifth album, and first for ArtistShare, Spirit Music--in other words, the “Spirit of '76. Brookmeyer doesn't mention that in the liner notes, preferring to let others read between the lines and saying only that to circumvent “a routine that had developed [with the NAO] over the past ten years," he had “used a combination of new and recently ...

Bob Brookmeyer New Art Orchestra: Get Well Soon

by Jack Bowers
August 11, 2004

Get Well Soon is the third recording by the New Art Orchestra, an eighteen-piece ensemble formed nearly two decades ago in Lubeck, Germany, as a jazz component of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and overseen since its inception by the renowned American trombonist and composer, Bob Brookmeyer. Brookmeyer loves the NAO ("It has been my good fortune to become associated with an incredible group of people," he says. “They love what they do, they thrive on their friendships, and they give ...

Bob Brookmeyer: Stay Out of the Sun

by Matthew Wuethrich
July 7, 2004

In valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer's biography, one can trace the map of jazz's history, both musical and personal. Brookmeyer has spent time in many of jazz's major ensembles, including Basie, Thornhill, Ellington and Lewis, and small groups, playing with Mulligan, Getz, Giuffre and Mingus. Along the way he has taken part in and contributed to the music's orchestral and instrumental innovations. He has also unfortunately experienced one of jazz's major tragedies: substance addiction, a disease that nearly cost him everything.

A Bob Brookmeyer Bonanza

by Elliott Simon
February 14, 2004

Turning 75 this year, valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer brought his New Art Orchestra to town last month at the IAJE and a “Battle of the Bands” at the Village Vanguard. He endures as a master of the “cool” and continues to produce musical permutations resulting in elaborate and complex compositions that are clear and pure: music, that is, well, “cool”. Island is co-led with a musician who is as respected as Brookmeyer, 74-year-old flugelhorn/trumpet player Kenny Wheeler. In addition to ...

Bob Brookmeyer and Kenny Wheeler: Island

by Rex Butters
January 7, 2004

Veterans Bob Brookmeyer and Kenny Wheeler explore shared sensibilities on Island, a collection that could have fit comfortably in Wheeler’s ECM catalogue, but instead spearheads the resuscitated Artists House label. Although they’ve not recorded together before, they set eachother up and finish eachother’s thoughts like a long married couple. The island in question seems more north Atlantic than Caribbean. While the program tends toward moody mid-tempo tunes, the high level of playing keeps monotony at bay.

The ...

The Bob Brookmeyer New Art Orchestra: Waltzing with Zoe

by Jack Bowers
July 1, 2002

Spectacular. There’s no other way to describe “Seesaw,” the opening number on the second album by Bob Brookmeyer’s German–based New Art Orchestra. A shame the Grammy Awards don’t include one for best big–band composition (even though there is a ludicrous prize for “best Jazz solo”), as “Seesaw” would win the honor going away. The highest compliment this reviewer can pay Brookmeyer’s “dialogue between drums and band” is that it brought to mind some favorite themes (“Playground,” “Big Swing Face,” “555 ...