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Studio 6 Big Band Performance in Berkeley, CA on February 19
Formerly The Don Piestrup Big Band, the Studio Six Band has been performing in the Bay Area since the 1960s. Many of Piestrup's compositions were recorded by the Buddy Rich Band in the 1960's and 70's. The Studio 6 Band performs music from the Don Piestrup library as well as many other well known jazz composers, ...
Skelton Skinner All Stars / Clare Fischer Big Band / Ron Carter's Great Big Band

by Jack Bowers
Skelton Skinner Allstars Big BandCookin' with the Lid OnDiving Duck Records2012 Back in the late 1950s, vibraphonist Terry Gibbs (with some help from his friends) put together an ensemble that became known as the Terry Gibbs Dream Band, took up residence in Hollywood and began blowing audiences ...
SuperSax Me
by Jack Bowers
Back in the early 1970s bassist Buddy Clark and saxophonist Med Flory conceived a brilliant idea: to form a group (primarily a reed section with rhythm) that would use orchestrated arrangements of saxophonist Charlie Parker's transcendent bop solos as the basis for its music. As for a name, nothing less than SuperSax would suffice. The nine-piece ...
Stan Kenton-NOVA Jazz Orchestra / Baker's Dozen Big Band / Danny D'Imperio and the Bloviators

by Jack Bowers
Stan Kenton Orchestra / NOVA Jazz OrchestraDouble Feature, Vol. 2Tantara Productions2012 One of the more difficult aspects of reviewing Tantara's series of impressive salutes to Stan Kenton and his music is knowing where to begin. As on Volume 1 of the label's Double Feature (with Volume 3 ...
New World Jazz Composers Octet: Breaking News

by Edward Blanco
Eight players does not a big band make, but The New World Jazz Composers Octet is a light ensemble offering an assertive sound reminiscent of a big band production. Boasting a cadre of educators and first-rate musicians, the group manages powerful orchestrations employing an exciting horn section, lively percussion and blistering piano work from Tim Ray ...
Catching Up
by Jack Bowers
As our most recent column was devoted exclusively to the Ken Poston / LAJI event, Modern Sounds," held October 20-24 at the Los Angeles Marriott Airport Hotel, and to the day-long tribute to bandleader Stan Kenton on the hundredth anniversary of his birth that followed, a number of substantive items slipped through the cracks. Before they ...
New World Jazz Composers Octet: Breaking News

by Hrayr Attarian
Established in 2000, in the spirit of the Mingus Jazz Workshop, the New World Jazz Composer's Octet sounds more like an orchestra than a group of eight musicians. On its third release, Breaking News, the octet showcases six contemporary composers affiliated with the ensemble. The music is intricate and well-constructed, with hints of ...
Cecilia Coleman Big Band / Phil Norman Tentet / UNT One O'Clock Lab Band

by Jack Bowers
Cecilia Coleman Big BandOh Boy!PandaKat Records2011 Among the many pleasant surprises on Oh Boy!, pianist Cecilia Coleman's maiden voyage as leader of her own big band, perhaps the most eye-opening is that the band had been together for only eight months when the album was recorded by ...
New World Jazz Composers Octet: Breaking News

by Andrew J. Sammut
The New World Jazz Composers Octet thrives on the old school idea of jazz composition as conduit to great jazz performance, and its third album, Breaking News, puts theory to practice from the outset with Matthew Nicholl's Poco Picasso." The jutting melodic angles and tightly orchestrated front line arrest on their own merits, while also spurring ...
"Modern Sounds," or: Running a Marathon in Full Body Armor
by Jack Bowers
From October 19-25 Betty and I were at the Los Angeles Marriott Airport Hotel to attend Modern Sounds, the L.A. Jazz Institute's four-day salute to West Coast jazz, followed by a day-long tribute to Stan Kenton on the hundredth anniversary of the legendary bandleader's birth. We arrived a day early to be primed and ready for ...