Home » Jazz Articles » The UMO Jazz Orchestra

Jazz Articles about The UMO Jazz Orchestra

About The UMO Jazz Orchestra

Album Review

The UMO Jazz Orchestra: Kari Heinil

by Jack Bowers
July 1, 2001

Finland’s UMO Orchestra looks inward on this album, recorded about four years ago in Helsinki, with ten of its dozen selections and all arrangements by present or former members of the ensemble. There’s a lot of good music on offer, but one must readily concede that it’s an acquired taste. In other words, UMO is emphatically cutting–edge and makes few concessions to the big–band models that have preceded it. Thankfully, those few concessions do include melody, harmony and rhythm (this ...

158

Album Review

The UMO Jazz Orchestra: One More Time

by Jack Bowers
June 1, 2001

What can one say when the composer is widely acclaimed, the orchestra world–class, and the music (in his opinion) well–written and arranged but singularly unexciting? Well, he could begin by noting that One More Time, the UMO Jazz Orchestra’s collaboration with composer / trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and vocalist Norma Winstone, is far better than its earlier album for A–Records, Electrifying Miles (AL 75153), with another guest trumpeter, Tim Hagans. This one is at least listenable — but not much more ...