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Jim Hopson
Cory Weeds: Home Cookin'
by Jack Bowers
On Home Cookin', his second recording with an eleven-piece little big band," tenor saxophonist Cory Weeds is doing the best he can. Really. As Weeds writes in the liner notes, the plan was to rehearse the band for two nights at Frankie's Jazz Club in Vancouver, Canada, home to Weeds and most of the band's personnel, then to convene at the Warehouse Studio on Sunday to record. Arriving at the club on Friday evening, Weeds found to his dismay that ...
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by Pierre Giroux
Cory Weeds, a prominent figure in the contemporary jazz scene, has made a remarkable statement with his Little Big Band's latest album Home Cookin'. The session showcases a vibrant collection of compositions/arrangements carefully curated to resonate with his personal journey, including those by Horace Silver, Thad Jones and Oliver Nelson, which are essential to him for a variety of reasons. The band comprises ten of his favorite world-class Vancouver, BC-based musicians. These previously mentioned influential tracks ...
read moreDaniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra: Open Spaces
by Jerome Wilson
The subtitle of this album is Folk Songs Reimagined" and Daniel Hersog uses a very liberal meaning for the term folk song" here. He includes traditional folk songs on this album, in addition to familiar tunes by Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot and his own folk-based compositions. All are given a glistening polish in the sweeping cinematic arrangements which he writes for his orchestra, and are further enhanced by excellent solo work from a number of musicians. Hersog's ...
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by Jack Bowers
Locked down and socially distanced during the pandemic, composer-arranger Daniel Hersog had an interesting idea: rearrange some well-known and well-loved folk songs, most with Canadian roots, for jazz orchestra and throw in a handful of his own original compositions with a folk-tune ambience. The result is Open Spaces: Folk Songs Reimagined, the sophomore album by Hersog's Vancouver-based ensemble. As on his debut recording, Night Devoid of Stars (Cellar Music, 2020), Hersog welcomes a number of talented guest ...
read moreDaniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra: Night Devoid of Stars
by Jerome Wilson
Daniel Hersog is a Canadian trumpet player and composer, here presenting his first big band album, a set of sweeping and progressive orchestral jazz which reflects the current state of the world with shifting moods of unease and cautious optimism. Hersog has a expansive style of writing that draws as much from classical music as jazz. His compositions here are written to feature two main soloists, tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger and pianist Frank Carlberg, much as Gil Evans ...
read moreDaniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra: Night Devoid of Stars
by Jack Bowers
Daniel Hersog is the latest arrival in a long-running parade of world-class jazz composer-arrangers from Canada, albeit not in the image of Rob McConnell, Phil Nimmons or Rick Wilkins but more akin to some of his mentors including (but not limited to) John Hollenbeck, Ken Schaphorst and Dave Holland. Night Devoid of Stars (named for a premise by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), Hersog's debut recording as leader of his Jazz Orchestra, consists of half a dozen of his original ...
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Music
Shenandoah
From: Open SpacesBy Jim Hopson
Cloud Break
From: Night Devoid of StarsBy Jim Hopson