Jazz Articles about Ken Robinson

About Ken Robinson

Album Review

There are times when even the Best Laid Plans are unable to generate quite enough horsepower to realize their full promise and purpose. New York City-based composer and arranger Jon Schapiro clearly had a plan in mind for the third recording by his large ensemble, Schapiro 17. The plan evidently included broadening the horizons of contemporary big-band jazz by writing adventurous new charts while taking a second look at themes composed by others and giving them a fresh coat of ...

Album Review

Swingadelic: Bluesville

Read "Bluesville" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 29, 2020

If you're partial to music that is sunny and freewheeling and almost commands a smile, you should have no trouble warming to Bluesville, the eighth recording by New Jersey-based Swingadelic, now twenty-two years old and counting. As its name implies, the orchestra (more often than not a mini-big band a dozen or so strong) re-creates an era wherein young fun-lovers (and some older ones as well) listened, danced and grooved to bands whose essential purpose was to make sure everyone ...