Jazz Articles about Randy Sandke

Randy Sandke: Outside In, The Mystic Trumpeter, Trumpet after Dark

by Andrew Velez
October 11, 2005

Randy Sandke Outside In Evening Star Records 2005

The pleasures of Outside In should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with trumpeter Randy Sandke. Adventurous and forward thinking, he also incorporates the best of traditional jazz. The opener, “Ganjan, is an opportunity for him and bandmates Wycliffe Gordon, Marty Ehrlich, Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson, Uri Caine, Greg Cohen and Dennis Mackrel (Howard Alden guests on one tune) to conjure up some 21st century ...

Randy Sandke and the Metatonal Band: The Mystic Trumpeter

by Michael P. Gladstone
August 21, 2005

Trumpeter and composer Randy Sandke has recorded 22 albums as a leader since 1985 and has appeared on countless others in largely a mainstream and postwar swing setting, and of late he has dabbled in outside jazz. The Mystic Trumpeter may be Sandke's most ambitious effort to date. The album is presented as “metatonal" music, which is a term that Sandke uses to describe how his compositions use harmonies that are derived in a way that hasn't yet been integrated ...

The Randy Sandke Quartet: Trumpet After Dark

by Michael P. Gladstone
August 16, 2005

There is much to admire in this album, subtitled Jazz In A Meditative Mood. Trumpeter Randy Sandke has been actively recording since 1985, largely in a postwar swing and mainstream style, although Mainstream Meets the New Music, his 2002 venture into free jazz, raised some eyebrows and garnered new fans. Sandke is comfortable working in a “jazz with strings" setting, and his arrangements here are quite attractive. Many of these selections recall the albums that cornetist Ruby Braff made under ...

Randy Sandke: Cliffhanger

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
October 25, 2003

This is the perfect CD for the Scrooges in your life who insist that “jazz is dead." From the incandescent opener to the racing finish, it's a crackling, masterful, joyous set of classic jazz playing – not a big surprise given the folks involved. Randy Sandke is one of the best trumpeters around. With great tone and chops, he swings hard and clean, also stepping up to deliver a beautiful ballad (as in the glorious “What's New," with its occasional ...

The Bix Beiderbecke Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!

by Jack Bowers
May 3, 2003

Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who considered himself a failure and died (primarily from alcohol abuse) in 1931 at age twenty-eight, would no doubt have been astonished to learn that a group of world- class musicians was assembling to record an album celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth. But if Bix was unable to recognize his own genius, others were--and now, seventy-two years onward, he rests comfortably in the pantheon raised to honor such legendary jazz pioneers as Louis Armstrong, King ...

Randy Sandke and the Inside Out Jazz Collective: Mainstream Meets the New Music

by Dave Nathan
July 19, 2002

Nagel Heyer does something very interesting with this album by putting togther musicians from two schools of jazz. There's the more traditional swing, classic jazz of leader Randy Sandke, Scott Robinson and Ken Peplowski combing efforts with the decidedly modern group of players headed by Marty Ehrlich, Ray Anderson and Uri Caine.

The result is some decidedly different mix of sounds laid down on the same tracks. This is apparent right from the outset with “Like I Said" ...

Harry Allen: Love Songs Live!

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2001

Two words are about all that are needed to sum up the singular talents of swing–based tenor saxophonist Harry Allen — smooth and consistent, each of which aspect of his charismatic persona is abundantly present on this compilation of love songs recorded in concert between 1993 and ’96. I’m not fully conversant with Allen’s influences but Stan Getz had to be one of them (listen, for example, to Jobim’s “Once I Loved”). Others, he says, include Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins ...