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Planet Jazz: In Orbit
by AAJ Staff
Heavenly--if not very far out--sextet sides are Planet Jazz's saucer of well-steeped black tea. Just the bracing tonic one might expect from Sharp Nine, purveyor of intelligence and taste in small-band jazz for a decade.
From the first tightly scored, three-voiced chorus, which swings smoothly through drum breaks on a tune waggishly entitled Mommy, Mommy No!, you can tell there's some underlying story here, and it happens to go beyond the weird titles. In this case, the group is a ...
read morePlanet Jazz at Smalls
by David A. Orthmann
Planet Jazz Smalls New York, NY May 28, 2006
In March of 2005, I caught Planet Jazz at Smalls, just a couple of weeks after the reopening of Mitch Borden's legendary bastion of straight-ahead sounds. It was a decidedly casual performance before a sparse audience. The sextet's regular tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart was out of town, Charles Ruggiero substituted for drummer Joe Strasser, and pianist Spike Wilner hurried in from another gig for the ...
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by David A. Orthmann
Planet Jazz In Orbit Sharp Nine Records 2006
Planet Jazz is a longstanding, unrecognized sextet that boasts several exceptional soloists and an unusually cogent rhythm section. Two factors distinguish the band from the wealth of talented groups on the New York City straight-ahead jazz scene: A precise ensemble sound honed by a year's worth of regular gigs at Smalls, Mitch Borden's musician-friendly club; and a book comprised largely of tunes by the composer/drummer Johnny ...
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