Jazz Articles about Jabbo Ware and The Me We & Them Orchestra

Jabbo Ware and The Me We & Them Orchestra: Vignettes in the Spirit of Ellington

by Francis Lo Kee
October 26, 2005

This is a sonically gorgeous recording. James Jabbo Ware beautifully orchestrates, exploiting the colors of the various instruments to their fullest, and he frames the great soloists in different ways from solo spot to solo spot. Much of the music here has a narrative element. “Strange Land starts with a mallets on tom-toms groove but soon breaks down into string tremolos that might suggest visual images of the strange land. Then a totally different groove begins after ...