Jazz Articles about Mike Holober

About Mike Holober

Album Review

Pianist/composer Mike Holober's songs brim with shifting textures and moods, like the color changes wrought by the inexorbably-shifting angles of sunlight playing upon the striations of a canyon wall. Holober spends free time hiking and climbing, and he wrote the title tune for Canyon after a trip to Utah's Paria Canyon, an experience that inspired a song full of seamlessly shifting grooves.Those shifts and changes within a composition – done while maintaining an entrancing accessibility – are Holober's ...

110

Album Review

The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

Read "Thought Trains" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2002

One assumes instinctively that a big–band album named Thought Trains isn’t likely to include such time–worn staples as “Moten Swing” or “One O’Clock Jump.” That’s definitely true of this one, even though it does receive a “jump start” from Mike Holober’s rhythmically vibrant composition, “Jump Down, Spin Around.” All of the compositions / arrangements are Holober’s, and while they may not awaken memories of the Swing Era they surely do swing, which is among the most meaningful components in any ...