Jazz Articles

Bert Joris / Brussels Jazz Orchestra: Smooth Shake

by Jack Bowers
January 3, 2017

While much can be said and written about Belgian trumpeter Bert Joris' music, perhaps no one can more aptly describe the rationale underlying the Brussels Jazz Orchestra's new collaboration, Smooth Shake, than the composer himself: “A warm sound--that's what I had in mind for this album. A sound that envelops you, fills you with energy, like a meaningful friendship." With that in mind, Joris (who bears a passing resemblance to the Irish actor Liam Neeson) wrote all ...

Brussels Jazz Orchestra: The Music of Enrico Pieranunzi

by Jack Bowers
March 23, 2016

For those few die-hards who may adamantly insist that superior big-band jazz never reaches beyond America's borders, here is irrefutable proof that the reverse is true: the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, world-class in every respect, performing (in concert) admirable compositions by the marvelous Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi with arrangements by the no less marvelous trumpeter Bert Joris who also solos on most of the album's eight tracks. If the future of big-band jazz looks and sounds like this, the bandwagon had ...

Joe Fonda/Carlo Morena/Jeff Hirshfield: What We're Hearing

by AAJ Staff
December 1, 2000

Joe Fonda's swinging straight-ahead trio on 1994's What We're Hearing includes Carlo Morena, a four-year prior collaborator; and Jeff Hirshfield, a relative newcomer to Fonda's musical universe. The trio plays with a degree of tightness and clarity that generally characterizes more long-term associations. The corners are all tucked in on What We're Hearing, a studio performance. (One has the sense that this trio could deliver a much more viscerally exciting performance in the live setting.)

Fonda's abundant soloing on this ...