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Mike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Hiding Out
by Jerome Wilson
Mike Holober is a celebrated composer and arranger who has worked for ensembles like the Westchester Jazz Orchestra in New York and the WDR and HR Big Bands in Germany. He is also the leader and founder of the Gotham Jazz Orchestra which here makes its first appearance on record in ten years. Holober makes this return a fruitful one, coming up with a 2CD set featuring two long suites, both with themes involving American landscapes. The first ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Hiding Out
by Jack Bowers
Mike Holober has been Hiding Out rather openly for the past ten years or so, waiting for the proper time to gather together his world-class Gotham Jazz Orchestra and record for the first time since 2009's widely acclaimed album Quake (Sunnyside), in which his picturesque compositions and arrangements were compared favorably to those of Duke Ellington and Gil Evans, to name only two. In the interim, Holober has hardly been sitting on his hands, serving time as director of New ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Hiding Out
by Dan Bilawsky
If musical polymath Mike Holober is hiding out, he's doing it in plain sight. Constantly in demand, his work as a pianist, conductor, arranger and composer has drawn plenty of attention. In the past 15 years alone he has served as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Westchester Jazz Orchestra (from 2007-2013), the Associate Guest Conductor of the hr-Bigband (from 2011-2015), and the Associate Director of the BMI Jazz Composer's Workshop (from 2007-2015). In that same stretch of time, ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Hiding Out
by Karl Ackermann
Mike Holober's background as a classical pianist and conductor is just one thing that sets Hiding Out apart from the current crop of big band releases. Holober has worked in a variety of settings from solo, duo, and quintet to large ensembles. Two previous recordings with his Gotham Jazz Orchestra were the critically acclaimed Thought Trains (Sons of Sound Records, 2004) and Quake (Sunnyside Records, 2009), comprised of covers and original Holober compositions. On the ambitious double-disc Hiding Out, Holober ...
Continue ReadingJeremy Noller: Music Notes
by Greg Simmons
Jeremy Noller's debut as a leader makes a broad case for his international brand of jazz. Music Notes assembles a variety of musical strains, including American jazz, West-African rhythms, and even folk music, blending them all seamlessly. With eight original compositions, Noller proves his value as a composer as well as a drummer. The first notable element is the inclusion of the acoustic guitar, ably manned by Jesse Lewis. The natural resonance of the steel strings and wooden ...
Continue ReadingJeremy Noller: Music Notes
by Mark F. Turner
What do Illinois and West Africa have in common? More than is apparent, at first glance. Originally from Libertyville, Illinois, drummer Jeremy Noller has studied with the great saxophonist Bunky Green, traveled and performed abroad, and gigged in New York since 2003. An educator whose influences include Wayne Shorter, Noller is also a student of the traditional drumming music of Guinea, West Africa. These experiences inform Music Notes , a worthwhile excursion into music with ebullient rhythms and heartwarming melodies. ...
Continue ReadingSuresh Singaratnam: Lost in New York
by Raul d'Gama Rose
The breathtaking narrative of Lost in New York is couched in an abstract interplay between performers and their instruments, as they describe what must have been a most challenging newcomer's journey to that often forbidding city. Trumpeter Suresh Singaratnam's high-wire act documents every nuance with some of the most rarefied excursions to emerge from a horn. An astute observer of his own life and those around him, Singaratnam allows the angst of being, and observing, to permeate the heated rush ...
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