Forrest Buchtel

Forrest Buchtel's New York Confidential Big Band: Shhh!!

by Jack Bowers
December 8, 2006

To help enliven the first recording by his NYConfidential Big Band, trumpeter Forrest Buchtel assembled an A-list of the city's busiest sidemen and handed them a dozen charts by Grammy Award-winning composer/arranger Gary Anderson. Needless to say, it's a productive alliance.

With two exceptions (more about them in a moment), the studio session consists of openly explicit, albeit staunchly contemporary themes, spotlessly performed by Buchtel's seasoned eighteen-member ensemble. The departures are “California Bells, wherein electronic gimmickry is employed to garnish ...