Jazz Articles about Peter Erskine

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Peter Erskine: Peregrine

by Jack Bowers
May 14, 2026

Drummer Peter Erskine, who began his productive career with the Stan Kenton Orchestra in the last century, is a master craftsman who is comfortably at home in groups large or small. Along the way, he has recorded more than forty-five albums as leader or co-leader of various ensembles, always embracing his assignment with proficiency and taste. On Peregrine, Erskine is in a trio setting with a pair of gifted colleagues, pianist Alan Pasqua and bassist Scott Colley, performing ...

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Dave Slonaker Big Band: Shifty Paradigms

by Jack Bowers
February 16, 2026

While Los Angeles-based composer and arranger Dave Slonaker's paradigms may be shifty, his all-star big band is about as forthright as one could wish. On Shifty Paradigms, his third recording fronting the band, Slonaker guides his peerless eighteen-member ensemble through its paces on a dynamic and always-swinging program that encompasses seven of his stellar original compositions and the venerable standard, “Bye Bye Blues." Slonaker's game plan is simple: give the band superior themes and charts on which to ...

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Peter Erskine and the DR UM Band feat Mike Mainieri Teatro Civico La Spezia

by Danilo Codazzi
November 6, 2025

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Judy Whitmore: Let's Fall in Love

by Jack Bowers
July 6, 2025

Polymath Judy Whitmore has taken time away from her busy and productive career(s) to record her fifth album, Let's Fall in Love, and like the first four, it is a smooth and delightful tour of memorable themes from the Great American Songbook, sung with radiance and heart by one of the leading exponents of popular song on today's scene. Whitmore does not sing jazz (no scatting or improvising here); she leaves that in the capable hands of ...

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Peter Erskine: Revisiting Weather Report

by C. Andrew Hovan
March 20, 2025

A standout drum prodigy of his generation, Peter Erskine began playing at the age of four. After honing his skills at Interlochen, he launched his professional career in 1972 with Stan Kenton. Four years later, he joined Maynard Ferguson before making a pivotal move, replacing Alex Acuña in Weather Report. In the spring of 2025, acclaimed vocalist Kurt Elling embarks on a new project celebrating the music of Weather Report. As the tour nears its end, Erskine ...

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Franco Ambrosetti: Sweet Caress

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 13, 2025

Il rapporto fra jazz e archi è sempre stato piuttosto tormentato. A ottant'anni suonati (è nato nel dicembre 1941 e l'incisione data dicembre 2023, quindi 82 giusti giusti) ci casca anche un musicista glorioso come Franco Ambrosetti, che confeziona un album che verrebbe quasi da definire “pomicioso" (fin dal titolo), a dispetto dei musicisti coinvolti nella band in quanto tale (string orchestra esclusa, quindi). Otto i brani, per metà del trombettista (qui flicornista) ticinese, che suona ovunque benissimo, ...

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Peter Erskine: Vienna to Hollywood: Impressions of E.W. Korngold & Max Steiner

by Jack Bowers
February 10, 2025

From Vienna to Hollywood is versatile drummer Peter Erskine's ardent homage to the (mostly) film music of the renowned Academy Award-winning Viennese composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, who wrote some of filmdom's most memorable themes during Hollywood's Golden Age in the decades from 1930 to 1960. To transpose their film scores to the jazz genre, Erskine uses a talented group of performers from Vienna's JAM Music Lab University (where he serves as artist-in-residence), supplanted on two numbers by ...