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The Brian Martin Big Band: Old Home/New Home
by Jack Bowers
Brian Martin, who as a working musician wears many hats--trombonist, composer, arranger, educator and band leader among them--has taken those hats from his native Iowa and given them a new mailing address in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. Which is a big deal. Big enough, at least, for Martin to have devoted much of Old Home/New Home, the Brian Martin Big Band's debut recording, to the ins and outs and ups and downs of leaving one's friendly confines to plant new ...
Continue ReadingFernando Huergo: Relentless
by Jack Bowers
Argentine-born bassist and composer Fernando Huergo's heavy-duty Massachusetts-based big band delivers the goods on Relentless, a taut and vibrant review of oppression, discrimination, environmental challenges and other social issues, interwoven with Huergo's lively tribute to the saxophonist Ornette Coleman and a charismatic and thought-provoking survey ("La Vida Sigue") on life after the Covid-19 pandemic, with all compositions and arrangements by the leader. This is well-designed, no-holds-barred big-band jazz, delivered with verve and enthusiasm by eighteen well-prepared musicians ...
Continue ReadingDarrell Katz & OddSong: Galeanthropolgy
by Jerome Wilson
OddSong is a chamber ensemble led by composer Darrell Katz, and distilled from the membership of the larger JCA Orchestra. It features vibraphone, violin, saxophones and voice, on music which veers between art songs and bluesy sax-led jazz tunes. Most of Katz's original compositions on this album feature poems by his late wife, poet Paula Tatarunis, but the tracks also stretch out to include songs by Jimi Hendrix, James Taylor, Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington. Katz's original writing, ...
Continue ReadingThe JCA Orchestra: Live At The BPC
by Jerome Wilson
The JCA Orchestra has been an important part of the Boston jazz scene since it formed in 1985. Several of its recordings are dominated by the compositions of its leader, Darrell Katz, but this live concert from the Berklee Performance Center features works by several orchestra members other than Katz and gives a fuller picture of the orchestra's range. Violinist Mimi Rabson contributes two atmospheric pieces. “Romanpole" is a musical culture clash inspired by the period when the ...
Continue ReadingDana Sandler: I Never Saw Another Butterfly
by C. Michael Bailey
Tender is that memory nearly lost. Theresienstadt was a concentration camp and ghetto established by the German Schutzstaffel during World War II in the Bohemian fortress town of Terezín. Theresienstadt had two purposes: it was a coordinating center ahead of the extermination camps, and an erstwhile retirement community for elderly and prominent Jews intended to mislead their respective communities about German intentions. Camp conditions were engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners through inadequate diet and overwork, while the ...
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