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The Composers Collective Big Band: The Toronto Project
by Jack Bowers
The term Composers Collective is quite often a thinly veiled phrase that signifies “experimental" or “avant-garde" jazz. Thankfully, that is far from true on the Composers Collective Big Band's irrepressible The Toronto Project, which carries the listener on a buoyant and colorful musical journey through Canada's largest city, capital of the province of Ontario and home to a number of superb jazz musicians. True, there are some moments when the Collective veers from conservative to exploratory, but ...
read moreAvi Granite 6: Operator
by Dan McClenaghan
Guitarist Avi Granite--in the company of his brash band Avi Granite 6--opens his Operator with “Crushing Beans," displaying a big bad attitude. The drums are explosive, the horns belt it out, the bass shakes the walls and Granite slashes and burns. The first impression is: “This must be a great live band." And indeed, the studio appointment to record Operator came when the group was fresh from a tour. They brought the bandstand energy with them. “Voracious" is ...
read moreThe Saskatchewan All Star Big Band: Saskatchewan Suite
by Jack Bowers
On Saskatchewan Suite, composer/arranger Fred Stride and the twenty-member Saskatchewan All Star Big Band have combined to paint a luminous and colorful portrait of that western Canadian province, canvassing 150 years of its history in eight picturesque movements that describe in musical terms the land itself, its indigenous peoples, newcomers from Europe and elsewhere, its recognition in 1905 as a province, the importance of various sports to Saskatchewan's inhabitants, and the legacy of jazz as an essential part of its ...
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