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Joe Sullivan Big Band: Northern Ontario Suite
by Jack Bowers
The latest recording by Canadian trumpeter Joe Sullivan's big band is built around his picturesque six-movement Northern Ontario Suite, whose purpose is to portray musically the sights, sounds and ambience of Sullivan's frosty corner of the world including the often spectacular aurora borealis ("northern lights"). The suite is preceded by a pair of Sullivan's engaging compositions ...
M13: 1 Human, Too Human
by Jack Bowers
M13 is a well-groomed thirteen-piece contemporary ensemble from Chicago whose uncredited leader (and composer / arranger) is saxophonist Aaron McEvers, an Eastman School grad who moved westward from his native Detroit. 1 Human, Too Human is the group's first recording after a decade of rehearsals" at Quencher's nightclub in the Windy City and elsewhere. As is ...
University of Missouri Concert Jazz Band: Home: The Columbia, MO Sessions, Vol. 1
by Jack Bowers
An observation worth repeating: college jazz ensembles keep getting better and better. And that's a good thing. Furthermore, they no longer reside for the most part in larger cities on the east or west coasts, but are emerging more often in such mid-sized hamlets as, say, Columbia, MO, better known for jump shots and touchdowns than ...
L.A. Six: Frame of Mind
by Jack Bowers
Once upon a time ('way back in the 1970s-80s) there was the peerless L.A. Four (Bud Shank, Laurindo Almeida, Ray Brown, Shelly Manne) and now we have the L.A. Six, another hard-swinging post-bop ensemble that has chosen to walk in some rather large shoes by recording a splendid debut album, Frame of Mind. With Tom Peterson ...
The Mark Masters Ensemble: Everything You Did: The Music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen
by Jack Bowers
Another tribute album from leader / arranger Mark Masters whose splendid ensemble has previously paid homage to trumpeter Clifford Brown, saxophonist Lee Konitz, trombonist Jimmy Knepper and the Gershwin brothers (Porgy & Bess Redefined). This time around it's the music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, better known by their collective name, Steely Dan. The album, ...
Kirk MacDonald: Symmetry
by Jack Bowers
Following two splendid albums as leader of his own big band (Deep Shadows, Family Suite for Large Jazz Orchestra), Toronto-based saxophonist / educator Kirk MacDonald has returned to a small-group format for Symmetry, the thirteenth recording on which his name has been listed atop the marquee. In this case, however, any member of MacDonald's quintet could ...
University of Toronto 12TET: Rebirth
by Jack Bowers
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more congenial curtain-raiser than Jason Stillman's animated, inflexibly swinging Contemporary Insanity," which opens Rebirth, the debut album by the University of Toronto's snug and well-upholstered 12TET. That's admittedly a tough act to follow, and while the ensemble gives it the old college try it doesn't always live up to the ...
UNT Two O'Clock Lab Band: Kind of Two
by Jack Bowers
The University of North Texas, home to the country's oldest, most honored and, many would say, explicitly outstanding Jazz Studies program, has a number of topnotch big bands in the stable, each of which is named after its specific rehearsal time. While the One O'Clock Lab Band, which has been recorded most often, is best known ...
Mike Longo and the New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble: Live from New York!
by Jack Bowers
The fourth album by pianist Mike Longo's stalwart New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble is the first one recorded in front of an audience, in May 2013 at the New York City Baha'i Center's John Birks Gillespie Auditorium. On the one hand, Live from New York! offers the kind of spontaneity and high spirits ...
Maria Baptist: Music for Jazz Orchestra
by Jack Bowers
Like it or not, a new wave of young composer / arrangers has surfaced, scrupulously guiding big bands into heretofore uncharted waters, now and then smooth, at other times choppy, but always intriguing and inspired. Maria Schneider, George Gruntz, Jim McNeely and Carla Bley were among the pacesetters, followed in short order by such (relative) newcomers ...


