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The Birdland Big Band: Storybook: The Music of Mark Miller

by Jack Bowers
Storybook, the third recording by the New York City-based Birdland Big Band, is subtitled the music of Mark Miller" and is designed to showcase compositions and arrangements by that multi-talented artist who doubles (triples) as the band's lead trombonist. Miller wrote or co-wrote half of the album's 10 colorful and impressive numbers (11 if one counts Joaquin Rodrigo's brief Concerto de Aranjuez," which serves as an introduction to Chick Corea's Spain") and arranged all of them. Miller's ...
Continue ReadingScott Whitfield & Friends: A Bi-Coastal Christmas

by Jack Bowers
If trombonist Scott Whitfield's A Bi-Coastal Christmas cannot quicken your inner holiday spirit, that will not be for lack of trying. Whitfield uses every ribbon in the packet and every tool in the shed to help make the season bright, from big band to quintet, from duo to solo (Whitfield's trombone all by itself). Two of the selections were recorded in 2004, four others in 2005, whereas Whitfield's brace of solo tracks was taped in 2020 as he cast off ...
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