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Florian Ross/WDR Big Band: Plans & Drawers
by Jack Bowers
While Plans & Drawers may seem an odd name for an album of big-band jazz, the fact is that German-born composer and arranger Florian Ross had no “plans" to record before the opportunity arose to produce a second album with his home country's world-class WDR Big Band Cologne, and many of his compositions had been consigned to “drawers" in his studio. Once the agreement was finalized, Ross reopened those drawers, plans were made, and Plans and Drawers was recorded in ...
Continue ReadingFlorian Ross: Tunes & Explorations
by Jack Bowers
Variety and nostalgia are the essence of Tunes & Explorations, the twenty-second album by German-born composer/arranger Florian Ross who observes his fiftieth anniversary by dipping into the Great American Songbook to revive and reshape for his splendid octet a number of luminous evergreens from the Golden Age of American music. Ross underlines the contrast via jazz compositions from Bill Evans ("Fun Ride") and Horace Silver (the closing “Sister Sadie") and his own groovy curtain-raiser, “Baking Magels." The ...
Continue ReadingFlorian Ross Octet: Tunes & Explorations
by Pierre Giroux
Florian Ross is a German-born composer, arranger and jazz pianist who has a fondness for releasing albums with double names which began with his debut release Seasons & Places (Naxos Records, 1998). He has continued with that “idée fixe" in almost every year in which he has delivered a release. This year is no exception; the latest incarnation is Tunes & Explorations, an octet session given over (with one exception) to the exploration of some well-known compositions from the Great ...
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