Jazz Articles about Carl Saunders

Horizons Jazz Orchestra: Plays the Music of Lee Harris: The Brite Side

by Edward Blanco
April 16, 2020

The south Florida-based Horizons Jazz Orchestra (HJO), present their debut album, The Brite Side, performing five original Lee Harris compositions and also five standards sporting fresh new Harris arrangements, for a compelling package of big band music that is a pleasure to hear. Founded in 2016 by Stan Kenton alumnus Dennis Noday, and former baritone saxophonist & arranger (in the New York studio scene during the 1960s) Lee Harris, the group was known as the Superband before morphing into its ...

The Carl Saunders Exploration: The Lost Bill Holman Charts

by Jack Bowers
November 1, 2007

The Bill Holman charts unearthed here by the Carl Saunders Exploration weren't so much “lost as overlooked--hidden away for some two decades in a closet at the home of geologist/saxophonist Ted Richardson in Houston, Texas. On the other hand, as none of them had ever been recorded, they may accurately be described as “found.

The charts were written for Richardson's septet, which was disbanded in the mid-1980s before plans to record them could be carried out. Richardson took them home, ...

Carl Saunders: Can You Dig Being Dug?

by Jack Bowers
October 18, 2005

Somewhere in the dimly remembered past, before the scufflers were hip and everyone knew what was happenin', there were “hepcats who devised a language all their own, one in which it wasn't difficult to imagine one saying to another, “Hey, man, can you dig being dug?

That shopworn phrase, which serves as the title of trumpeter Carl Saunders' newest album, recorded live at Charlie O's in Van Nuys, California, is the only aspect of the enterprise that is in any ...

Phil Urso/Carl Saunders: Salute to Chet Baker

by Jack Bowers
March 6, 2004

Phil Urso won’t remember this, but many years ago—nearly half a century, in fact—I heard him playing in a small club in Washington, DC, and was so impressed that I approached him after the gig and said he sounded to me like Zoot Sims. I made his day then, and now I’d like to give it another try. Urso and trumpeter Carl Saunders have joined forces to sculpt this warmhearted tribute to the incomparable but self-impaled Chet Baker, and although ...

Carl Saunders: Be Bop Big Band

by AAJ Staff
November 21, 2002

Without a doubt this is the best big band to come along in many a year. The speed burners will knock your socks off, and the ballads will send romance wafting around like the sweet smell of Joy Perfume.

The sections feature the best musicians in the business; the leader, trumpet virtuoso Carl Saunders, is in a class by himself. Some beautiful Herb Phillips arrangements, aided by exquisite playing from the soloists, make this recording a true ...

Carl Saunders: Be Bop Big Band

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 2002

I'd best take care when reviewing this album by trumpet maestro Carl Saunders, as I could run short of laudatory adjectives before the appraisal has been completed. For those who are unfamiliar with his c.v., Saunders has been enriching big-band trumpet sections for more than four decades, having cut his teeth with the renowned Stan Kenton Orchestra while still a teen-ager in 1960. The pedigree is immaculate too; Carl's mother, Gail Sherwood, once sang with Kenton, and his uncle, Bobby ...

Carl Saunders: Eclecticism

by Jack Bowers
April 1, 2001

There is one unequivocal reason to acquire this album, and it can be summarized in two words: Carl Saunders. If you’ve not yet heard this unsung master of the trumpet / flugelhorn, it’s time you did. And if you’ve already been introduced I needn’t say more, as no doubt the decision has already been made to lay your hands on a copy of his second album, Eclecticism. While I can’t honestly say that I was inflamed by the decision to ...