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Tony Kadleck Big Band: Around The Horn

by Nicholas F. Mondello
In assessing baseball talent, the scouts' description five-tool talent" describes a hitter who can do it all--run, field, hit for average, hit with power and throw. When a musician such as Tony Kadleck steps into the recording batter's box as leader and with work presented such as Around the Horn, the description not only fits like a glove, but, the musical umpires surely will be finger-twirling" and calling it a Grand Slam. Kadleck, long a key fixture ...
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by Jack Bowers
Tony Kadleck, who has done almost everything one can do on a trumpet, adds the designation big-band leader to his resume with Around the Horn, an impressive debut CD for which he has written all the charts and enlisted a group of the New York area's A-list musicians to interpret them. If leadership is best imparted by example, Kadleck shouldn't have a care in the world, as his discography includes more than eighty albums from pop to blues to jazz ...
Continue ReadingTony Kadleck Big Band: Around The Horn

by Dan Bilawsky
Trumpeter Tony Kadleck is one of those musicians that nearly everybody has heard, regardless of whether they know it. He's an unerring player with extraordinary chops, making him a first-call player for Broadway contractors, jazz musicians, and anybody looking for a never-miss trumpet player to add musicality to a studio session. His horn can be heard on the original cast recordings for shows like Beauty And The Beast (Disney, 1994) and The Producers (Sony Classical, 2001); he's been a mainstay ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober & The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Quake

by Elliott Simon
Duke Ellington's legacy is alive and well with pianist Mike Holober and The Gotham Jazz Orchestra. Holober makes use of the increased musical scope that 17 pieces give him to weave compositional strength within a sound that sways more than swings. Some of the finest jazzers New York City has to offer join Holober for this session. Their individual talents are certainly showcased but the strength of this release is how Holober fits them all together to ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

by Robert R. Calder
Mike Holober's not just another pianist working within long-established post-Bill Evans methods, he's one of the rare very individually creative ones. Given his more monumental approach, his Gotham Jazz Orchestra can seem something of an extension of his piano work. His orchestration sometimes fills out a piano conception, sometimes interacts with his playing, piano concerto fashion. A band member's solo will sometimes have the full orchestra, sometimes the at times equally full-sounding rhythm section, in accompaniment. Planned and grand. With ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

by John Kelman
Originally recorded in '96, years before Mike Holober's début small group recording Canyon (Sons of Sound, '03), Thought Trains is only now seeing the light of day, but it continues to assert the pianist/composer/arranger as a dominant new force on the New York scene. And while the larger ensemble context of Thought Trains limits the amount of spontaneous interplay that was prevalent on Canyon , it makes up for that kind of unrestrained exploration with sharp arrangements that make full ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains

by Dan McClenaghan
There's something about trains, the metronomic, ringing clink-clack of metal wheels on metal track, the fanfare of the whistle, the rhythm and rumble of the coaches being propelled across a countryside. Duke Ellington loved trains, in a day when he and the band used the form of transportion to get from gig to gig. Think of Take the A Train" and Track 360." Pianist/arranger/composer Mike Holober loves trains, too, as his second outing as leader attests--the big band set Thought ...
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