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Album Review

Chicago Jazz Ensemble: Kenton a la Russo-Live at the Jazz Showcase

by Dave Nathan
May 1, 2001

William (he used to be called “Bill") Russo, with his Chicago Jazz Ensemble as his medium, is the unabashed keeper of the flame for Stan Kenton's music. Despite his detractors, Kenton's organization was the breeding ground for a host of white jazz musicians who went on to greater glory. Kenton also fostered and demanded imaginative and innovative charts. His stable of arrangers was unmatched by most orchestras in the number he carried at any one time or the quality of ...

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Album Review

The Chicago Jazz Ensemble: Kenton a la Russo

by Jack Bowers
December 1, 2000

William Russo, who used to be just plain Bill when he was playing trombone and writing for the Stan Kenton Orchestra nearly half a century ago, is now a professor of music at Chicago’s Columbia College and conductor of the splendid Chicago Jazz Ensemble which recorded Kenton a la Russo in concert last February at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase. The program combines a quartet of Russo’s compositions for Kenton’s ear–shattering ensemble (“Frank Speaking,” “230 North, 820 West,” “Portrait of a ...