Jazz Articles about Brian Williams

About Brian Williams

Album Review

The Scott Whitfield Jazz Orchestra West: Postcards from Hollywood

Read "Postcards from Hollywood" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 8, 2023

While many people have been excited or enraptured by the music scores accompanying Hollywood's most beloved films, few know (or perhaps even care) who wrote them. That's a shame, as these composers (and their contemporaries) were musical trailblazers whose names should be enshrined forever in the annals of artistic brilliance. One who does care is composer/arranger Scott Whitfield who has dedicated the latest album by his Jazz Orchestra West, Postcards from Hollywood, to their remarkable (and too-often overlooked) legacy.

Album Review

The Steve Spiegl Big Band: The L.A. Sessions at Capitol Studios

Read "The L.A. Sessions at Capitol Studios" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 19, 2020

Almost every Monday morning for the past fifty years, composer-arranger Steve Spiegl convened his Los Angeles-based big band for a rehearsal session, assembling, for most of that time, at the Musicians Union in Hollywood and, more recently, at its new home in Burbank. When Spiegl decided in 2019 to pull up stakes and move northward to Oregon, which meant bidding a melancholy goodbye to the band and its weekly rehearsals, it marked the end of an era—but not without one ...