Jazz Articles about Scott Whitfield

About Scott Whitfield

Album Review

Marina Pacowski: New Jazz Standards, Volume 7

Read "New Jazz Standards, Volume 7" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 6, 2025

To those who know--really know--their breathtaking jazz trumpeters, Carl Saunders was definitely in a class by himself. Simply put, there was nothing Saunders could not do on the horn, from nailing seemingly insurmountable high notes to creating intricate and mind- blowing solos, all the while making it seem so effortless that many listeners thought he must have found and harnessed a secret weapon of which others were unaware. What many of his admirers did not know was ...

Album Review

The Scott Whitfield Jazz Orchestra West: Postcards from Hollywood

Read "Postcards from Hollywood" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 8, 2023

While many people have been excited or enraptured by the music scores accompanying Hollywood's most beloved films, few know (or perhaps even care) who wrote them. That's a shame, as these composers (and their contemporaries) were musical trailblazers whose names should be enshrined forever in the annals of artistic brilliance. One who does care is composer/arranger Scott Whitfield who has dedicated the latest album by his Jazz Orchestra West, Postcards from Hollywood, to their remarkable (and too-often overlooked) legacy.

Album Review

Jim Self: My America 2: Destinations

Read "My America 2: Destinations" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 15, 2023

Tuba maestro Jim Self's My America 2: Destinations is a successor of sorts to the album My America, recorded and released some twenty years before, also on Self's Basset Hound label. While personnel has inevitably changed (only trombonist Bill Booth returns from that earlier album), Self has employed the services of the same arranger, Kim Scharnberg—and thank goodness for that! Although Self and his eleven-member supporting cast acquit themselves well, it is Scharnberg's ingenious charts that make this engine run. ...

Album Review

Jim Self: Hangin' Out

Read "Hangin' Out" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
June 11, 2022

One can be forgiven for not knowing a saxhorn from a saxophone, or, for that matter, whether a particular horn is a member of a certain family. Yes, there are aficionados (not to mention serious players) who can quite accurately describe the histories of the instruments, their lineages, and their peculiarities or idiosyncracies. Yet for many, it is difficult to distinguish a cornet from a trumpet. With a clever choice of mouthpiece, an adept instrumentalist can render them basically indistinguishable ...

Album Review

Gary Brumburgh: Full Circle

Read "Full Circle" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
May 20, 2022

A recording dedicated to New York theater and a high school music teacher. Ho, boy, one thinks. “What could go wrong?" Actually, not much. Vocalist Gary Brumburgh is, all snobbery aside, a very pleasant surprise. He swings. He is plenty hip. He has an attractive style and a pleasant, companionable voice. So, what good can come of Nazareth (or anywhere else, for that matter), On Circle, plenty. This is a Friday- afternoon kind of recording, good for unwinding and the ...

Album Review

The Jim Self / John Chiodini Duo: Hangin' Out

Read "Hangin' Out" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 2, 2022

Hangin' Out is the third album by the unlikely duo of Jim Self on tuba and John Chiodini on guitar. This time around, they hang out on five of the thirteen numbers with special guests--trombonist Scott Whitfield, tenor saxophonist Tom Peterson, baritone saxophonist David Angel and flugelhorn player Ron Stout, each of whom has a feature number before joining the leaders for a full-fledged jam on the lyrical finale, Johnny Burke/Jimmy Van Heusen's enduring standard, “It Could Happen to You," ...

Album Review

Gary Brumburgh: Full Circle

Read "Full Circle" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 15, 2022

Gary Brumburgh is living proof that a talented singer can sustain a respectable career in music without becoming a “star." Even though he's not a household name—or anywhere near it—Brumburgh performed in musical productions from dinner theatres to summer stock, concert stages to casinos for more than two decades before changing direction in 2003 to focus on jazz. Full Circle, Brumburgh's third album as a jazz vocalist, consists of eleven tunes he has sung in various musical productions, bedecked in ...