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Album Review

Mark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100

Read "Sam Rivers 100" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 26, 2025

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, ...

Album Review

Mark Masters Ensemble: Sui Generis

Read "Sui Generis" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
April 11, 2025

Dopo aver creato nell'ultimo album nuovi arrangiamenti per i classici ellingtoniani dei primi anni quaranta (Masters & Baron Meet Blanton & Webster, Capri Records), il notevole orchestratore californiano riduce l'organico e presenta un repertorio tutto suo. Dalla precedente incisione resta solo il trombettista Tim Hagans che ha il ruolo di principale solista. Il titolo del disco usa un'espressione latina ancora in uso nella lingua italiana, che Masters riferisce ad Hagans, sottolineando quell'unicità artistica che apprezza da cinquant'anni, quando ...

Album Review

Mark Masters Ensemble: Sui Generis

Read "Sui Generis" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
October 26, 2024

Sui Generis by the Mark Masters Ensemble featuring trumpeter Tim Hagans is an inventive addition to the world of contemporary jazz. Known for his deft compositions and dynamic arrangements, Mark Masters delivers a collection of nine original compositions, each of which embodies the spirit of spontaneity. Joining Masters in this session are a group of musicians known for their high bar of musicianship, including alto saxophonist Nicole McCabe, tenor and soprano saxophonist Jerry Pinter, trombonist Dave Woodley, French hornist John ...

Album Review

Mark Masters: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook

Read "Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
May 18, 2021

Ringraziando il cielo nascono ancora dischi come questo. Opere che evocano gli anni cinquanta, quando il jazz rifletteva un mondo che guardava al futuro con speranza. Un disco retrò dunque? Solo se lo si guarda superficialmente. L'omaggio di Mark Masters al songbook di Alec Wilder con Gary Smulyan protagonista, non è esercizio stilistico o lavoro di routine ma un percorso fresco e smagliante, caratterizzato dalle dinamiche orchestrazioni di Masters e dai trascinanti interventi del sax baritono. Un'opera i cui i ...

Album Review

The Mark Masters Ensemble: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook

Read "Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 8, 2020

Alec Wilder was born in 1907 and died in 1980, and might well have been described as an eccentric renaissance man. He composed opera, musicals, film music, popular songs, and chamber music, along with publishing in 1975 one of the most read books on popular music: American Popular Song: the Great Innovators 1900-1950. The Mark Masters Ensemble is a tight knit and imaginative Octet which can stake their claim on mining the gold contained in Alec Wilder's popular ...

Album Review

The Mark Masters Ensemble: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook

Read "Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
July 28, 2020

Night Talk, the eighth album by celebrated arranger Mark Masters' superb West Coast-based ensemble, is subtitled “The Alec Wilder Songbook Featuring Gary Smulyan." Indeed, Smulyan's is an impressive solo voice (but hardly the only one) in an eloquent songbook that appraises eight of Wilder's tasteful compositions, including a pair of his best-known melodies, “Moon and Sand" and “I'll Be Around." As Masters arranged every number for his hand-picked octet, nothing more need be said about that save ...

Album Review

Mark Masters Ensemble: Our Metier

Read "Our Metier" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 11, 2018

Mark Masters, an extraordinarily talented and perhaps undersung arranger of large ensembles jazz, has spent a good deal of artistic energy on crafting recordings that explore other people's compositions. His Capri Records output includes The Clifford Brown Project (2003), celebrating the sounds of the too-soon-gone trumpet legend; Porgy and Bess (2005), from the George Gershwin songbook; One Day With Lee (2004), a celebration of alto saxophonist Lee Konitz; Farewell Walter Dewey Redman (2008), a nod to another great sax man; ...