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Jim Riggs & Stefan Karlsson: Texas Times
by Jack Bowers
Recording a duo album is something that old friends Jim Riggs and Stefan Karlsson have wanted to do for some time, and they make the most of the long-delayed opportunity on Texas Times, an eloquent and engaging recital that never wears thin in spite of its more or less familiar playlist and the fact that Riggs ...
Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Musings
by Jack Bowers
When a composer / arranger who hasn't yet turned thirty can enlist the caliber of musicians who are present and accounted for on Musings, the inescapable assumption is that something special is afoot. Upon listening, that appraisal proves to be quite accurate, as young Christopher Zuar (twenty-seven when this debut album was recorded) presents seven of ...
The Jim Cullum Jazz Band: Porgy and Bess Live
by Jack Bowers
Since its New York City debut in September 1935, George Gershwin's beloved folk opera Porgy and Bess has been recreated and performed in almost every possible context, from classical opera to musical theatre to mainstream jazz, in America and overseas. The opera has been probed and dissected so often, in fact, that at first blush another ...
Ernie Watts Quartet: Wheel of Time
by Jack Bowers
On the Buddy Rich band's album Big Swing Face (circa 1967), Ernie Watts unleashes a blazing alto sax solo on the title track that is guaranteed to send chills up and down the spine and leave listeners wondering, “How did he do that?" Now, almost half a century later, the seventy-year-old Watts continues to weave those ...
Roberto Magris: Need to Bring Out Love
by Jack Bowers
Perhaps the best word with which to describe Italian-born pianist Roberto Magris is busy. Since launching his career in the late '70s, the fifty-six-year-old keyboardist has performed with a veritable who's who of jazz luminaries in forty-one countries, and Need to Bring Out Love is his twenty-seventh album as leader of his own groups (in this ...
Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra: Portraits and Places
by Jack Bowers
Scott Reeves formed his splendid New York-based orchestra eight years ago, in 2008, and while Portraits and Places marks its recorded debut, Reeves spent a number of years before that sharpening his composing and arranging skills at the highly regarded BMI Jazz Composers Workshop where he received tutelage and counsel from Manny Albam, Mike Abene, Jim ...
David Linx / Brussels Jazz Orchestra: Brel
by Jack Bowers
While David Linx's name may not be writ large here in the States, the fifty-one year-old singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist is a mega-star in his native Belgium, and in 2005 was named Best Jazz Musician in Europe, which covers a whole lot of territory. On Brel, Linx sings music composed by his Belgian forerunner, the late ...
Raul Agraz: Between Brothers
by Jack Bowers
Venezuelan-born and classically trained trumpeter Raul Agraz makes an impressive North American debut with Between Brothers, a vibrant album of Latin-oriented jazz whose harmonic and rhythmic quotients are about as strong and steady as one could wish. As is the case in other contexts these days, the term “brothers" is presumably used in a metaphorical sense, ...
Myles Wright: The LA EP
by Jack Bowers
Composer / arranger Myles Wright deserves full credit for truth in advertising, as The LA EP is precisely that--an abbreviated CD with three selections whose playing time is roughly twenty-four minutes. On the other hand, Wright doubles the listener's pleasure by including with the album a well-produced Blu-Ray DVD (in black and white) so one can ...
Brussels Jazz Orchestra: The Music of Enrico Pieranunzi
by Jack Bowers
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 ...
