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Chad Lefkowitz-Brown and the Global Big Band: Open World
by Jack Bowers
There are times, thanks to the indestructible human spirit, when even the most horrendous scourge--say, a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives in countries around the world--can lead to the occasional silver lining, a small yet persistent light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Case in point: Open World, a superlative new album by saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (commonly known as Chad LB) and the Global Big Band, whose name describes exactly what it is: an ensemble ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill: Virtual Birdland
by Jack Bowers
Whenever an obstacle presents itself--even one as devastating and disruptive as a global pandemic--it's a sure bet that musicians will find a way around it, a way to keep making music even in the most grievous circumstances. Jazz musicians have been especially creative during the Covid-19 scourge, using social media, the internet and any other means at their disposal to share their music with the world. True, the paychecks aren't as large or as regular as once they were, but ...
Continue ReadingSchapiro 17: Human Qualities
by Jack Bowers
Following its splendid premiere recording, an exploration of Miles Davis' unrivaled album Kind Of Blue (Capitol Records, 1959), composer/arranger Jon Schapiro's 17-member ensemble broadens its horizons on Human Qualities, pairing seven of the maestro's astute and adventurous charts with the Roberta Flack best-seller, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." This time around, Schapiro proves that he need rely on nothing more than his own considerable experience as a jazz artist to create an album that expresses his point ...
Continue ReadingSchapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60
by Jerome Wilson
Miles Davis' album Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) is the best-selling jazz album of all time and has been highly influential for the last 60 years. Most of its five tracks have become jazz standards and have been interpreted time and again. However it is rare to see the entire album reworked to the extent that Jon Schapiro and his big band, Schapiro 17, do here. The tracks undergo extensive retooling, expanding into big band arrangements that carry on the ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill: Four Questions
by Jerome Wilson
Surprisingly this set marks the first time Arturo O'Farrill has recorded a set of solely his own compositions. It was worth the wait because this music, played by his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, really demonstrates the cinematic sweep and variety of his writing. The set is constructed around two topical extended works. The first, “Four Questions," is based on four questions about the struggle for human rights and personal dignity first posed by African-American author W.E.B. DuBois in ...
Continue ReadingSwingadelic: Bluesville
by Jack Bowers
If you're partial to music that is sunny and freewheeling and almost commands a smile, you should have no trouble warming to Bluesville, the eighth recording by New Jersey-based Swingadelic, now twenty-two years old and counting. As its name implies, the orchestra (more often than not a mini-big band a dozen or so strong) re-creates an era wherein young fun-lovers (and some older ones as well) listened, danced and grooved to bands whose essential purpose was to make sure everyone ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Four Questions
by Jack Bowers
The Four Questions addressed by composer / pianist Arturo O'Farrill's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra on its latest album were first posed in 1903 by W.E.B. DuBois in his book The Souls of Black Folk and are answered herein by the esteemed educator / historian / social activist Dr. Cornel West. For the record, the questions are “what does integrity do in the face of adversity and oppression, what does honesty do in the face of lies and deception, what does ...
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