Jazz Articles about Bryan Davis

About Bryan Davis

Album Review

There are times when even the Best Laid Plans are unable to generate quite enough horsepower to realize their full promise and purpose. New York City-based composer and arranger Jon Schapiro clearly had a plan in mind for the third recording by his large ensemble, Schapiro 17. The plan evidently included broadening the horizons of contemporary big-band jazz by writing adventurous new charts while taking a second look at themes composed by others and giving them a fresh coat of ...

Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley

Read "Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
March 17, 2025

Scoperto da Carla Bley nel 1979, quand'era ancora studente diciannovenne, e rimasto nei suoi gruppi per tre anni, Arturo O'Farrill ne celebra la memoria con quest'album ambizioso, che raccoglie due sue suites ed una ("Blue Palestine") che lui stesso commissionò alla grande autrice e bandleader nel 2019, quattro anni prima della sua morte. “Mundoagua" la composizione che apre il disco è stata scritta per commemorare l'Anno dell'acqua ed ha avuto la sua anteprima al Miller Theater di New ...

Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley

Read "Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
February 11, 2025

Mundoagua, the latest album by composer and pianist Arturo O'Farrill's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, is subdivided into three suites, the second of which is the four-movement “Blue Palestine," written and arranged by another celebrated composer and pianist, Carla Bley, a leading light in the avant-garde free jazz movement of the mid-twentieth century, who died of cancer in October 2023. The opening suite, “Mundoagua," commissioned by the Columbia University School of the Arts in 2018 to commemorate the ...

Album Review

Eyal Vilner Big Band: Swingin' Uptown

Read "Swingin' Uptown" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 6, 2024

Even though he was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, composer, saxophonist and educator Eyal Vilner is well-versed in the origins and history of American jazz, especially as they pertain to the Swing Era, big bands and the largely black jazz experience in Harlem and elsewhere. Those interests converge on Swingin' Uptown, on which Vilner's excellent big band swings its way through sixteen impressive charts, several of which were inspired by Harlem's remarkble jazz narrative. Besides ...

Album Review

Angela DeNiro: Swingin' with Legends 2

Read "Swingin' with Legends 2" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 14, 2023

On Swingin' with Legends 2, her fourth recorded collaboration with arranger (and husband) Ron Aprea's big band, vocalist Angela DeNiro sings beautifully--and receives a lot of help from her friends, especially guests Ken Peplowski on clarinet, Randy Brecker on trumpet and Lew Tabackin on tenor sax and flute. And what a band! Well-stocked with stars who are eager to fly whenever Aprea raises his baton. Not that DeNiro needs much help. She is quite simply a marvelous ...

Album Review

Angela DeNiro: Swingin' with Legends 2

Read "Swingin' with Legends 2" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
December 10, 2023

Vocalist Angela DeNiro sings with blue-ribbon vocal abilities. This is evident in her release Swingin' With Legends 2 . Accompanied by the Ron Aprea Big Band, supplemented by special guests Randy Brecker, Ken Peplowski and Lew Tabackin, she sails through fourteen love songs written by some of the greatest composers of the American Songbook, providing a deep understanding and command of the material she performs. The album opens with “New York City Blues," a not frequently ...

Album Review

Angela DeNiro with the Ron Aprea Big Band: Swingin' with Legends 2

Read "Swingin' with Legends 2" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
July 27, 2023

Swingin' with Legends 2 from Angela DeNiro with the Ron Aprea Big Band, is a follow-up to their first Legends effort in 1988. The album, as was its Grammy-entered predecessor, is a quintessentially classic big band recording featuring a fine female vocalist. The fourteen tunes here are predominantly from the Great American Songbook, with jazz greats Randy Brecker, Lew Tabackin, and Ken Peplowski delivering outstanding cameos. The opener “New York Blues" is a flat-out swinger with DeNiro belting ...