Jazz Articles about Wayne Bergeron

About Wayne Bergeron

Album Review

Chris Walden: Missa Iubileum Aureum: Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass

Read "Missa Iubileum Aureum: Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 30, 2022

First things first: there is no doubt that Chris Walden's reverential Missa Iubileum Aureum ("Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass") is beautifully written and wonderfully performed by the LMR Jazz Orchestra, St. Dominick's Schola Cantorum and cantors Kurt Elling and Tierney Sutton. Is it jazz? That is another question, one not so easily answered. While there are elements of jazz, they are incidental and generally overshadowed by the more doctrinal aspects of what is essentially an homage to devotion and piety. And ...

Album Review

Dave Slonaker Big Band: Convergency

Read "Convergency" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 22, 2022

While big-band albums generally differ, sometimes widely, in tone and temperament, there are definitive criteria by which every one may be evaluated--arrangements, performers, sound quality, sequencing and, above all, the elusive but imperative swing quotient. Dave Slonaker checks all those boxes and more on Convergency, a superlative successor to his excellent Grammy-nominated debut album, Intrada, released in 2013. To begin with, Slonaker, best known as a film and television composer, is an excellent big-band writer and arranger, ...

Album Review

Dave Slonaker Big Band: Convergency

Read "Convergency" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
August 3, 2022

Composer/conductor Dave Slonaker probably won't qualify as “prolific," at least based on recorded output alone, as he spends a lot of his time behind the scenes in film and television work—but one must appreciate the level of craftsmanship that he brings to his big band projects. His debut release, Intrada (Origin Records, 2014), received a well-earned Grammy nomination, and his sophomore effort is no less accomplished, with the well-designed compositions and outstanding ensemble work that justify all the attention it ...

Album Review

Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band: The Reset

Read "The Reset" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 16, 2021

Gordon Goodwin's dynamic Big Phat Band rumbles back onto the scene with The Reset, a somewhat less-than-big-phat album whose dual purpose, according to Goodwin, is to express hope and gratitude in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic and to honor one of Goodwin's mentors, the late Sammy Nestico. Goodwin calls the album an EP, whose twenty-eight minute playing time places it in roughly the same ballpark as a vinyl LP from the good old days before digital recording and streaming. ...

Album Review

The Jazz All Stars: The Jazz All Stars Volume 1

Read "The Jazz All Stars Volume 1" reviewed by Jim Worsley

by Jim Worsley
February 25, 2021

The gigless times of 2020--the year of the Covid-19 pandemic--could have brought musicians and the industry to their collective knees, gasping for air. Instead, it resulted in more new music than ever before. It filled our lungs with fresh air. It filled our hearts and souls, not to mention our ears. New businesses opening, defying the odds and pursuing their dreams, is a relevant factor. Le Coq Records, emerging in 2020, boldly presents an all-star ensemble—featuring many of ...

Album Review

Wayne Bergeron: Full Circle

Read "Full Circle" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
January 27, 2016

Track and field aficionados will remember Olympic gold-medal-winning high-jumper, Dick Fosbury. Fosbury revolutionized his event by developing an unorthodox “backward flop" to hurdle the bar. No flop, for sure, but Full Circle from trumpeter Wayne Bergeron and his stellar Los Angeles teammates raise every aspect of the trumpeting and big band bar to atmospheric heights. Bergeron, a mainstay in the L.A. studios, is revered for his high note precision and acrobatic ability on the horn. His talent to ...

Album Review

Doc Stewart Big Band Resuscitation: Code Blue!

Read "Code Blue!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 5, 2014

"Doc" is much more than a nickname to Chris Stewart: it's a profession. And straight-ahead jazz is far more than a pastime: it's a passion. For the past sixteen years, Doc Stewart's day gig has been ER physician at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Scottsdale, AZ. Long before that, however, Stewart was a working musician who played alto sax with a number of big bands including those led by Tom Kubis, Ladd McIntosh, Matt Catingub, Louie Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi / ...