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Dan Fornero
Dave Slonaker Big Band: Shifty Paradigms
by Jack Bowers
While Los Angeles-based composer and arranger Dave Slonaker's paradigms may be shifty, his all-star big band is about as forthright as one could wish. On Shifty Paradigms, his third recording fronting the band, Slonaker guides his peerless eighteen-member ensemble through its paces on a dynamic and always-swinging program that encompasses seven of his stellar original compositions and the venerable standard, “Bye Bye Blues." Slonaker's game plan is simple: give the band superior themes and charts on which to ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!
by Jack Bowers
In 2023-24, the celebrated arranger Mark Masters led his superb southern California-based ensemble into studios to record a pair of tribute albums. The first, Sam Rivers 100, was dedicated to the music of the late saxophonist on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth; the second, Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!, to that of another renowned saxophonist, Billy Harper, who is not only very much alive at age eighty-two but serves as guest soloist on both recordings. Unlike ...
Continue ReadingAdam Schroeder & Mark Masters celebrate Clark Terry: CT!
by Pierre Giroux
In jazz, where the past intertwines with the present and the future, few figures were as influential as the legendary trumpeter Clark Terry. During his playing career, he developed a creative, bouncy style with an irrepressible rhythmic verve that was entirely his own. The album CT! with baritone saxophonist Adam Schroeder and arranger Mark Masters serves as a heartfelt homage to this jazz icon, presenting fresh and invigorating arrangements of 13 Clark Terry originals skillfully performed by a 12-piece ensemble. ...
Continue ReadingDoug MacDonald: Big Band Extravaganza
by Richard J Salvucci
Some reviewers have been known to complain that contemporary big bands can do most anything but swing. Like all generalizations, there is some merit to the observation. But, like all generalizations, the occasional exception falsifies it. Looking for a big band that pushes all the right buttons? Look no further. Doug MacDonald's “desert jazz" band is an extremely good one. While it might be difficult to make claims about the novelty of what is on offer, the band is tight, ...
Continue ReadingJeremy Cohen: Raymond Scott Reimagined
by Walter Atkins
Raymond Scott Reimagined is an engaging collaborative project with Quartet San Francisco, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band and the Grammy winning acapella group Take 6 on two tracks. The album is a thoughtful and stylish interpretation of Raymond Scott's legacy. It is also interspersed with audio tidbits featuring Scott's singular musical approaches. The album kicks off with the enticing “Powerhouse," familiar to anyone who has watched a Warner Bros Looney Tunes cartoon. “Toy Trumpet" is a tasty composition ...
Continue ReadingDoug MacDonald: Big Band Extravaganza
by Jack Bowers
Pardon the superlative, but what a terrific album! Extravanga marks the debut of guitarist Doug MacDonald's seventeen-member Jazz Orchestra, and he has guaranteed that it swings with gusto by writing nine perceptive and luminous charts that are sure to bring out the best in any ensemble, especially one as well-equipped as this. During his decades-long career as one of the West Coast's foremost guitarists, MacDonald has recorded fifteen albums with groups ranging from solo to duo, quartet to brass and ...
Continue ReadingDave Slonaker: Convergency
by Richard J Salvucci
In December 1910, Virginia Woolf once observed, human character changed and, along with it, so did everything else. Politics, society, religion, sex, all of it, she thought, would leave the ancien regime behind. And, to a point, she was correct. Within a few years, the old world was gone, swept away by war and revolution. It was not coming back. Ever. Somehow, listening to the marvelous musical products of modern big bands, Woolf seems oddly relevant. The level ...
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Music
Shifty Paradigms
From: Shifty ParadigmsBy Dan Fornero
Was It Here...Is It There?
From: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!By Dan Fornero
Cherokee
From: My UniverseBy Dan Fornero
Serenade to a Bus Seat
From: CT!By Dan Fornero
Cutey and the Dragon
From: Raymond Scott ReimaginedBy Dan Fornero
Toy Trumpet
From: Raymond Scott ReimaginedBy Dan Fornero
Convergency
From: ConvergencyBy Dan Fornero
The Reset
From: The ResetBy Dan Fornero
