Maria Schneider Orchestra: Sky Blue

Schneider pushes the boundaries of jazz, presenting musical scores that center on her fascination with birds, and attempts to pen an imaginative musical tale of avian migration from the perspective of New York's Central Park. The result is five lengthy charts with the album's signature piece being the almost twenty-two minute "Cerulean Skies. The music is airy and spacious and not at all bound by the normal parameters one is accustomed to hearing from orchestral music.

Of course it helps to produce a unique concept album when you have one of the finest jazz orchestras in the country. The personnel reads like a list of all-stars, including master saxophonist Charles Pillow, as well as tenor saxophonists Rich Perry and Donny McCaslin, trumpeters Tony Kadleck and Ingrid Jensen and pianist Frank Kimbrough.

Perry is honored with the Schneider composition, "Rich's Piece, where he delivers an appreciable solo. Steve Wilson, another monster musician, provides a soprano solo on the title tune, while the opening statement, "The 'Pretty' Road, features Jensen on flugelhorn and trumpet with electronic effects.

The music is quite different from what one is accustomed to hearing from a big band project; then again Maria Schneider is quite different from the average music composer/bandleader of today and her Grammy nods prove it. For a departure from the norm, Sky Blue is serious sophisticated jazz with a message that this stuff is definitely not for the birds!

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