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Jazz Articles about Joe Magnarelli

About Joe Magnarelli

138

Album Review

Mike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

Read "Thought Trains" reviewed by Robert R. Calder

by Robert R. Calder
March 23, 2005

Mike Holober's not just another pianist working within long-established post-Bill Evans methods, he's one of the rare very individually creative ones. Given his more monumental approach, his Gotham Jazz Orchestra can seem something of an extension of his piano work. His orchestration sometimes fills out a piano conception, sometimes interacts with his playing, piano concerto fashion. A band member's solo will sometimes have the full orchestra, sometimes the at times equally full-sounding rhythm section, in accompaniment. Planned and grand. With ...

173

Album Review

Joe Magnarelli/John Swana: New York-Philly Junction

Read "New York-Philly Junction" reviewed by Russ Musto

by Russ Musto
December 7, 2004

This encore date by the two-trumpet team of Joe Magnarelli and John Swana is (like their first meeting) more collaborative in nature than competitive, and the results are similarly satisfying. Beginning with the title track, a co-written composition from the pair, the twosome show that they would rather work together than try to cut one another. With Eric Alexander's tough tenor filling out the front line and Joel Weiskopf, Peter Washington and Kenny Washington in the rhythm section, the sextet ...

154

Album Review

Mike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

Read "Thought Trains" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 23, 2004

Originally recorded in '96, years before Mike Holober's début small group recording Canyon (Sons of Sound, '03), Thought Trains is only now seeing the light of day, but it continues to assert the pianist/composer/arranger as a dominant new force on the New York scene. And while the larger ensemble context of Thought Trains limits the amount of spontaneous interplay that was prevalent on Canyon , it makes up for that kind of unrestrained exploration with sharp arrangements that make full ...

306

Album Review

Mike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

Read "Thought Trains" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 16, 2004

There's something about trains, the metronomic, ringing clink-clack of metal wheels on metal track, the fanfare of the whistle, the rhythm and rumble of the coaches being propelled across a countryside. Duke Ellington loved trains, in a day when he and the band used the form of transportion to get from gig to gig. Think of “Take the A Train" and “Track 360." Pianist/arranger/composer Mike Holober loves trains, too, as his second outing as leader attests--the big band set Thought ...

110

Album Review

The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

Read "Thought Trains" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2002

One assumes instinctively that a big–band album named Thought Trains isn’t likely to include such time–worn staples as “Moten Swing” or “One O’Clock Jump.” That’s definitely true of this one, even though it does receive a “jump start” from Mike Holober’s rhythmically vibrant composition, “Jump Down, Spin Around.” All of the compositions / arrangements are Holober’s, and while they may not awaken memories of the Swing Era they surely do swing, which is among the most meaningful components in any ...

144

Album Review

Joe Magnarelli: Mr. Mags

by C. Andrew Hovan
August 1, 2001

At a time when many contemporary jazz trumpeters seem to be pushing to the extremes (i.e. Russell Gunn’s rap/world beat groove or Dave Douglas’ avant stance), a player like Joe Magnarelli might seem more like a throw back to the past. A great reader and reliable sideman, Magnarelli can run down the bebop or blow pretty, depending on what the situation calls. He also possesses a crisp and burnished tone that is immediately attractive. But it would be unfair to ...

133

Album Review

Joe Magnarelli Quintet: Mr. Mags

by David A. Orthmann
March 1, 2001

Over the course of several years, with little fanfare, Joe Magnarelli produced a pair of distinctive small band recordings, each of which exhibited craft and artistic license in equal measure.Why Not, andAlways There, both issued on the Criss Cross label, were not merely vehicles for the trumpeter’s full, burnished tone and patient, thoughtful way of developing a solo. These superb discs also reveal Magnarelli as a composer of genuine merit, an arranger who fashions the music in terms other than ...