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Jazz Articles about Jeff Rupert
Jeff Rupert/George Garzone: The Ripple
by Jim Worsley
The Ripple refers to the infectious, warm, intimate, yet big sound developed by the great Lester Young, starting in the late 1930s. While Young pioneered improvisational creativity, Stan Getz later took the baton (well, it was actually a saxophone) and further expanded his idol's stylish approach with new and creatively open-ended visions. Young and Getz collectively have had an enormous effect on future generations of sax players. Consequently, they have left a significant and impactful mark on the sound of ...
Continue ReadingThe Flying Horse Big Band: The Bat Swings!
by Jack Bowers
Although The Bat Swings! could well be taken for a baseball analogy, the focus of this third CD by the University of Central Florida's high-powered Flying Horse Big Band is on music associated with the campy Batman TV series from the late 1960s that starred Adam West as the masked superhero and Burt Ward as his sidekick, Robin. The album embodies themes by the celebrated composers Nelson Riddle, Neal Hefti and Paul Francis Webster with arrangements by Michael Philip Mossman, ...
Continue ReadingFlying Horse Big Band: Big Man on Campus
by Jack Bowers
The Big Man on Campus on the fifth recording by the University of Central Florida's dexterous Flying Horse Big Band is composer / arranger / tenor saxophonist Harry Allen who wrote and arranged five of the album's eleven numbers and solos brightly on seven including Henry Mancini's amiable “Dreamsville," Billy Strayhorn's happy-go-lucky “Raincheck" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's amorous “Triste." The band's music director, Jeff Rupert, composed and arranged the shuffling “B.M.O.C." and picturesque “New Creole Love Call," ...
Continue ReadingJeff Rupert and Richard Drexler: Imagination
by Geannine Reid
Saxophonist Jeff Rupert is a YAMAHA performing artist. His credits include recordings and tours with: Diane Schuur, Mel Tormé, Kevin Mahogany, Ernestine Anderson, and Benny Carter's Grammy winning Harlem Renaissance. Jeff Rupert toured for fifteen years with Sam Rivers; four albums ensued, and from 1997-2002 he toured and recorded with Maynard Ferguson. Rupert is a Pegasus Distinguished Professor, Trustee Endowed Chair, and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Central Florida (UCF), and founder of Flying Horse Records.
Continue ReadingJeff Rupert: From Memphis to Mobile
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Sound and swing. It seems that these two elements of the very DNA of jazz are sadly absent from much of what is offered up in some of today's recorded music. It might be smooth or contrived, but much that's heard doesn't seem in synch with the very essence of the art form. Happily, with From Memphis to Mobile, saxophonist Jeff Rupert and cohorts excel supremely at both sounding and swinging. The CD offers up eleven selections ...
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