Jazz Articles

The Toronto Jazz Orchestra: 20

by Dan McClenaghan
June 30, 2018

The Toronto Jazz Orchestra, aka TJO, was created to perform music by the major jazz composers, like Miles Davis and his Miles Ahead (Columbia Records, 1958), the trumpeter's collaboration with Gil Evans, for one. With 20, the group celebrates the composition and arranging skills of its artistic director, Josh Grossman. With a twenty year history--hence the disc's title--TJO proves itself a top notch big band here, beginning with the Aaron Copland-esque “Georgie and Rose," with its sweeping backdrop ...

Octobop: . . .Out of Nowhere

by Jack Bowers
October 31, 2013

With Octobop, what you see (and hear) is what you get: “octo," as in octet, and “bop," as in swinging, straight-from-the-shoulder jazz as practiced by the legendary masters who rewrote the music's vocabulary in the '40s, '50s and '60s. Saxophonist and prime mover Geoff Roach leads the California-based group on its sixth CD, Out of Nowhere, which, much like the first five, is likable from end to end, blending the group's readiness and camaraderie after fifteen years together with an ...

Temple Jazz Orchestra: This Is TJO

by Jack Bowers
May 20, 2006

The Temple Jazz Orchestra, which began life about fifteen years ago as a part of the Jazz Studies program at Temple College, has evolved into a professional ensemble whose members include a number of the best big band musicians and educators in central Texas. The TJO was founded by its current director, Tom Fairlie, who triples as director/conductor of the Temple Symphony Orchestra and division director of Fine Arts at Temple College.

This is the TJO's third album. Unlike the ...

The Temple Jazz Orchestra: Soft Lights, Sweet Music Live!

by Jack Bowers
April 12, 2002

On first hearing, Soft Lights, Sweet Music left me shaking my head in disbelief. How, I wondered, could a Jazz ensemble from a two–year college in an undersized east–central Texas town possibly be that good? Something in the drinking water, perhaps? Seeking an explanation for the TJO’s remarkable proficiency, I turned to the liner notes and read the following: “Begun as a collaboration of students and adult musicians, the [TJO] has grown into a major professional ensemble. The mix is ...

The Toledo Jazz Orchestra: . . .Out of Nowhere

by Jack Bowers
December 1, 2000

Those who declaim that the big bands are dead should be required to listen to Track 1 of the Toledo Jazz Orchestra’s . . .Out of Nowhere (and perhaps the title track as well). It would be difficult to envision a livelier group of corpses! Indeed, there is nothing in the least “dead” about this album, as the TJO romps spryly through a program of time–tested standards and Jazz originals with the breathless enthusiasm of a teen–ager on his / ...