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The Mike Vax Jazz Orchestra: bigbandjazz.net
by Jack Bowers
Trumpeter Mike Vax has come up with an interesting idea, using his latest album to promote the web site bigbandjazz.net, which in turn promotes the Oakland, CA–based non–profit group Friends of Big Band Jazz (FBBJ), whose worthy goal is to help keep big–band Jazz alive for future generations. FBBJ supports and promotes performances by the MVJO, proceeds from which are used to provide opportunities for young musicians to pursue their interest in big–band Jazz through summer camps and other musical ...
read moreMike Vax: Creepin' With Clark
by Jim Santella
Recorded last September 1-2 in New York, this sextet session features three horn players who’ve spent their professional careers expressing with tone quality in residence at the top of their priority lists. Each has achieved a clean, overtone-rich timbre that allows the artist to perform a wide variety of music that always sounds beautiful. What separates Clark Terry from the younger members, of course, is the vast wealth of expressive ideas he’s developed over the years. Terry doesn’t age; he ...
read moreMike Vax Big Band: I Remember You
by Jack Bowers
This affectionate tribute to Stan Kenton (and to composer/arranger Johnny Richards and trombonist Dick Shearer) by trumpeter Mike Vax and the “Kenton Alumni Band" was recorded onstage at the 25th anniversary Morningside (Iowa) College Jazz Festival in February 1997. It has the reverberant ambiance of a concert date too, which is especially noticeable in the sound of Gary Hobbs's drums, John Akai's percussion and levels that vary among soloists. Putting that aside, the band (15 of whose members played at ...
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