Jazz Articles about John Zarsky

About John Zarsky

Album Review

Good Hang. That is not only a good name for an album but one that depicts the luminous spirit animating a splendid debut recording by New Orleans-bred composer, arranger and saxophonist David Bode's stellar nineteen-member Crescent City-based big band. From end to end, top to bottom, stem to stern or inside out, this studio session is a Good Hang by any measure one wishes to use. That impression is nowhere more apparent than on the opening number, ...

Album Review

Gabriel Evan Orchestra: Global Entry

Read "Global Entry" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 13, 2021

At least one dictionary defines an orchestra as “a large instrumental ensemble...which combines instruments from different families including bowed string instruments...woodwinds...brass...percussion..." and “other instruments such as the piano, celeste...and harp..." Or, in the vernacular of New York-based saxophonist Gabriel Evan, a jazz sextet with some but not all of the above. Which is an around-the-block way of saying that Evan's “orchestra" lands somewhere short of the normal definition. And that's by no means the only anomaly on ...