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Jazz Articles about Chris Oatts

33
Album Review

Danny Jonokuchi Big Band: A Decade

Read "A Decade" reviewed by Jack Bowers


For trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader Danny Jonokuchi, the path to success--in music and in life--has never been smooth or trouble-free. Born with a congenital lung disease, Jonokuchi needed life-saving surgery while in high school to treat a collapsed lung, which caused him to put his trumpet playing aside, at least temporarily. Years later, and almost a continent away from his native Los Angeles, Jonokuchi was viciously attacked in south Philadelphia, resulting in traumatic injuries to his mouth and embouchure. This ...

5
Album Review

Danny Jonokuchi: A Decade

Read "A Decade" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


A Decade is arranger-composer, trumpeter and vocalist Danny Jonokuchi's celebration of personal and musical evolution, encapsulating his growth over the last ten years as a musician and leader of his big band. The album draws on jazz's rich traditions while also serving as a reflection of the enduring spirit of the genre. The release features compositions that outline the signature flourish of Jonokuchi's writing, standing as a testament to his ability to overcome personal obstacles. The ...

3
Live Review

Chris Oatts’ Pretty Big Band at Chris’ Jazz Café

Read "Chris Oatts’ Pretty Big Band at Chris’ Jazz Café" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer


Chris Oatts' Pretty Big Band Chris' Jazz Café Philadelphia, PA May 28, 2024 The nonet, a nine-member ensemble which enables features of both small group and big band arranging and playing, has probably deserved greater use than it has seen in jazz over the years. Among the most notable applications was Bob Brookmeyer's use of it in the 1950s to bring together music and musicians from the big band era and ...

25
Album Review

Dial and DeRosa: Keep Swingin'

Read "Keep Swingin'" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Keep Swingin', a splendid new album from pianist Garry Dial and drummer Rich DeRosa, features “the music of Charlie Banacos." Charlie who? you may ask. And the answer is, there are jazz educators, and then there was Charlie Banacos, whose talent and ingenuity in the classroom influenced and inspired countless jazz musicians for more than fifty years. During that time, he designed more than a hundred courses of study and wrote half a dozen books on composition and improvisation.

4
Album Review

Chris Oatts: Personalities

Read "Personalities" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer


Saxophonist Chris Oatts is a graduate of the jazz program at Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance and the nephew of revered saxophonist—and faculty member of Temple University—Dick Oatts. This reviewer heard Chris Oatts at Chris' Jazz Café (similarity in the names purely coincidental) in September, 2021, with his quintet featuring one of his teachers and mentors, Terell Stafford, on trumpet. In that set, Oatts stayed within the bebop/hard bop traditions and showed exceptional sophistication, inventiveness, and resilience ...

5
Live Review

Chris Oatts Quintet featuring Terell Stafford at Chris’ Jazz Café

Read "Chris Oatts Quintet featuring Terell Stafford at Chris’ Jazz Café" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer


Chris Oatts Quintet featuring Terell Stafford Chris' Jazz Café Live and Streaming Philadelphia, PA September 10, 2021 This was the reviewer's first time at a live performance in a jazz club since the start of the corona virus pandemic a year and a half ago. A few weeks before, Chris' Jazz Café, the iconic downtown Philadelphia jazz club, re-opened to live performances. The pandemic is still evidenced by masks being ...

10
Album Review

Nick Lombardelli: Secret Suite

Read "Secret Suite" reviewed by David A. Orthmann


Nick Lombardelli's debut recording as a leader heralds the arrival of a prodigious composer, arranger and instrumentalist. Secret Suite is a five-part work that deftly fuses composed material and the improvisations of nearly everyone in an eight-piece band, including drummer Matt Scarano who initiates “Solid Ground" and caps off “A New View," the suite's final movement. Utilizing jazz and classical techniques, Lombardelli writes vivid melodies that evoke a variety of moods, often stretches his compositions beyond easily ...


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