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182

Album Review

The SWR Big Band Featuring Bob Florence: Goldener Meilenstein

by Jack Bowers
July 1, 2001

There are no more than a handful of big–band composer / arrangers these days who “leave their fingerprints,” as it were; those whose style is so readily identifiable that one can say with credible assurance, “Oh, yeah, that’s (fill in the blank).” Rob McConnell is one such craftsman, Bill Holman another, and Sammy Nestico and Gerald Wilson may warrant inclusion in that select company. Let’s see, are we overlooking anyone? Oh, yes, of course! — Bob Florence, a masterful big–band ...

171

Album Review

The SWR Big Band with Phil Woods: Jazz Matinee

by Jack Bowers
March 1, 2001

Phil Woods has been such an imposing presence on the Jazz scene for so many years that one hesitates to say he is now at the height of his creative powers — but it is hard to imagine him playing any better than he does on this marvelous concert date recorded a scant five years ago with Germany’s world–class SWR Big Band. Besides giving an alto saxophone clinic on eight of the nine selections and playing clarinet on the other ...

Album Review

The SWR Big Band Live: Featuring Jens Winther

by Jack Bowers
February 1, 2001

This is one of a series of recent in–concert recordings in which Germany’s SWR Big Band has welcomed accomplished guest artists, in this instance the award–winning Danish composer / trumpeter Jens Winther. “Featuring the compositions of Jens Winther” would be a more accurate description, as Winther wrote and scored each of the half–dozen numbers on the album but plays trumpet on only one, the ballad “Child of Nature.” Winther’s compositions have won him many prizes in European competitions, and his ...

178

Album Review

The SWR Big Band Featuring Max Greger: Swing-Legenden Live

by Jack Bowers
December 1, 2000

Germany’s SWR Big Band, with nearly half a century of experience under its belt, is one tight, punchy and self–confident ensemble. In this concert performance from September ’99, featuring the veteran tenor saxophonist Max Greger, the SWR belts out a series of evergreens from the Swing Era and Tin Pan Alley with a disarming blend of perception and panache. Even while traversing such familiar ground, the band does its best to enliven the landscape by throwing everything it has into ...