Jazz Articles about Mark Masters

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The Mark Masters Ensemble: One Day with Lee

by Jack Bowers
April 24, 2004

Having heard The Clifford Brown Project and now One Day with Lee, featuring the peerless alto saxophonist (and composer) Lee Konitz, I can hardly wait to hear what the Mark Masters Jazz Ensemble and its sponsor, the American Jazz Institute, plan to do next. If these aren’t two of the finest big-band albums of the past year, they surely belong on anyone’s Top Ten list.

While Konitz plays marvelously in any framework, he seems especially invigorated and at ease when ...

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The Mark Masters Jazz Ensemble: The Clifford Brown Project

by Jack Bowers
February 3, 2004

We don’t hand out stars with our reviews at All About Jazz, but if we did, this spectacular tribute to legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown by the Mark Masters Jazz Ensemble would easily earn five of them—or a solid ten on the oft-quoted “scale of one-to-ten.” Some albums are good, some are better than good, while others, like this one, are quite simply in a class by themselves.

For starters, we have the superlative compositions of Brownie himself, many ...

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The Mark Masters Jazz Orchestra: Early Start

by Jack Bowers
June 1, 2001

I’d heard the Mark Masters Jazz Orchestra before and been disappointed — not by the orchestra itself but by the recording, which sounded dry and sterile, almost as though it had been recorded in someone’s closet or a telephone booth. This reissue on Americatone is much better, both sonically and aesthetically. Masters has fashioned his ensemble in the image of the wonderful Stan Kenton Orchestra, and the eight selections on this album were all composed and / or arranged by ...