Riverside Community College

The Riverside Community College Jazz Ensemble: Upside Out

by Jack Bowers
February 20, 2004

This album covers several years (exactly how many is unclear) in the life of the Riverside Community College Jazz Ensemble (and a trio, heard on three of the nine tracks). Charlie Richard, who directs the band and combo, has done a splendid job in bringing them along, as witness the ensemble’s first-place honors in every competitive Jazz festival it has entered and its first-rate interpretations here of demanding charts by Bob Curnow, Jack Cooper, Dan Gailey, Sandy Megas, Paul White ...