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About Mark Masters
Mark Masters: The Arranger and the Box in the Garage
by Mike Jones
Mark Masters writes for the kind of jazz ensemble that barely exists anymore... and most of the time, the finished music ends up in a box in his garage. A composer and arranger on the Capri label alongside host Mike Jones, Masters has spent decades building ambitious large-group records around the voices he loves: Steely Dan reimagined, tributes to Sam Rivers and Billy Harper, a date with Art Baron, the last trombonist Duke Ellington ever hired.He and Jones ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters, Branford Marsalis, and RIP Lalo Schifrin
by Jerome Wilson
This episode features music by the Mark Masters Ensemble, Branford Marsalis, Spike Wilner, Ray Russell and others. It also pays tribute to the late composer Lalo Schifrin. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Ryan Truesdell “The Ballad of the Sad Young Men" from Shades of Sound (Outside In) 1:08 Chris Varga “This System of Things" from Breathe (Calligram) 6:23 ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100
by Dan McClenaghan
The Mark Masters Ensemble released Porgy and Bess Redefined! (Capri Records) in 2005. The music was taken from the George Gershwin/DuBose Heyward English-language opera, which was first performed in 1935. Masters' take on the classic was brilliantly expressed by the ensemble, who dug into his adventurous charts with freedom mixed with respect for the familiar and often-covered (most notably by the Miles Davis/Gil Evans teaming) original. It was a breakout effort for Masters. Billy Harper was there on tenor sax, ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!
by Jack Bowers
In 2023-24, the celebrated arranger Mark Masters led his superb southern California-based ensemble into studios to record a pair of tribute albums. The first, Sam Rivers 100, was dedicated to the music of the late saxophonist on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth; the second, Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!, to that of another renowned saxophonist, Billy Harper, who is not only very much alive at age eighty-two but serves as guest soloist on both recordings. Unlike ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters: Sam Rivers 100
by Jack Bowers
Sam Rivers 100 is the first of two homages recorded in 2023-24 by arranger Mark Masters and his blue chip southern California-based ensemble. This one pays tribute to the music of the late saxophonist Sam Rivers on the hundredth anniversary of his birth; the second, Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance! salutes the music of tenor saxophonist Billy Harper who is the ensemble's guest soloist on both albums. Rivers, who died in December 2011, was an early bebopper who ...
Continue ReadingAdam Schroeder & Mark Masters celebrate Clark Terry: CT!
by Pierre Giroux
In jazz, where the past intertwines with the present and the future, few figures were as influential as the legendary trumpeter Clark Terry. During his playing career, he developed a creative, bouncy style with an irrepressible rhythmic verve that was entirely his own. The album CT! with baritone saxophonist Adam Schroeder and arranger Mark Masters serves as a heartfelt homage to this jazz icon, presenting fresh and invigorating arrangements of 13 Clark Terry originals skillfully performed by a 12-piece ensemble. ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters: Masters & Baron Meet Blanton & Webster
by Jack Bowers
It is an absolute pleasure to hear several of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn's classic charts for Ellington's celebrated 1940-42 Blanton-Webster orchestra (named for a pair of its stars, bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster) adeptly rescored for a twenty-first century ensemble by the superlative arranger Mark Masters. And to ice the cake, the Masters ensemble welcomes to its ranks Art Baron, the last trombonist hired by Ellington, who anchored the plunger chair from 1973 until Ellington's death ...
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