Matthias Erlewein

Bob Brookmeyer with the Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra: Madly Loving You

by Jack Bowers
November 1, 2001

Kansas City–bred valve trombone master Bob Brookmeyer is top–billed on this handsomely conceived and superbly performed album because it was a gift from Ed Partyka’s Jazz Orchestra and a number of prominent composer / arrangers to Brookmeyer on his seventieth birthday in December 1999. Partyka, a Chicagoan who has lived since 1990 in Cologne, Germany, had taken part in Brookmeyer’s Jazz Composers’ Workshops in Cologne, was deeply influenced by them and sought to repay the debt by producing a big–band ...