Jazz Articles about Don Menza

The Don Menza Big Band: Menza Lines

by Edward Blanco
November 24, 2005

Laying the tracks from Stratospheric, a Los Angeles Jazz Institute four-day celebration of the career of trumpeter/bandleader Maynard Ferguson, former alumni Don Menza directs his own big band on the live recording Menza Lines. The album, the second for the Menza Big Band after the well-regarded Burnin (1981), was recorded at the LAX Four Points Sheraton Hotel in 2004. It's a big band album without a wall-to-wall big band sound. While solo performances are a characteristic of all ensemble recordings, ...