Home » Search Center » Results: Jack Bowers
Results for "Jack Bowers"
Heavy Hitters: That's What's Up!
by Jack Bowers
Heavy Hitters is a superb New York-based sextet co-led by pianist Mike LeDonne and tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander. Individually and as a team, the Hitters keep their eyes squarely on the ball, swing for the fences and, more often than not, slam the spheroid solidly out of the park. And on this typically upbeat session they ...
Cassio Vianna Jazz Orchestra: Vida
by Jack Bowers
As you can't always describe a book by its cover, neither can you invariably pinpoint with accuracy a jazz ensemble's locale by its name alone. The Cassio Vianna Jazz Orchestra, to choose a random example, is not from Italy--nor from anywhere else in Europe. Although born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Cassio Vianna has lived in ...
Terry Waldo & the Gotham City Band: Treasury Volume 1
by Jack Bowers
Pianist Terry Waldo isn't stuck in the past; he revels in it, as do his eager teammates on Treasury, Vol. 1--the first of three such discourses, according to the album's liner notes--recorded not in jazz's primal era but in May and June 2022 (save for “After You've Gone," recorded in October 2018 with the splendid guest ...
Tobias Hoffmann Jazz Orchestra: Innuendo
by Jack Bowers
Although German-born maestro Tobias Hoffmann can readily lay claim to a pair of music-inspired hats, he wears only one of them--that of composer and arranger--on the Tobias Hoffmann Jazz Orchestra's second recording, Innuendo, while placing the other (that of eloquent tenor saxophonist) in the capable hands of the ensemble's dynamic duo, Robert Unterkofler and Martin Harms. ...
Alliance: Alliance
by Jack Bowers
Alliance is an impressive all-female co-op quartet whose self-titled debut album, recorded in 2023, offers a luminous snapshot of their remarkable talent and versatility. Reed virtuoso Sharel Cassity, an alumna of New York City's world-class DIVA Jazz Orchestra, oversees the front line, while pianist Hannah Meyer provides an eloquent reciprocal perspective and shares the essential rhythmic ...
Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance
by Jack Bowers
Composer/arranger Christopher Zuar's second album, Exuberance, recounts in musical terms a twisting yet picturesque journey that began seven years earlier, in 2017, when Zuar first met his now-wife, the animator Anne Beal, at MacDowell, the famed artists' residency in New Hampshire. While the relationship “blooms" in winter, there are “moments between" and other inescapable detours until ...
Howard University Jazz Ensemble 2024: A Return to Glory
by Jack Bowers
The Howard University Jazz Ensemble celebrates its golden anniversary in 2024 with the release of its annual studio recording, A Return to Glory, dedicated this year to Howard alumnus Chadwick Boseman, an acclaimed actor best known for his starring role in the film Black Panther and his masterful film portrayals of baseball star Jackie Robinson and ...
Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: Secret Message
by Jack Bowers
No fuss, no frills here, simply forty-seven or so minutes of generally bright and engaging straight-ahead jazz, stylishly performed by drummer Joe Syrian's admirable Detroit-based octet. This is music the group plays often, blending standards from the Great American Songbook with more recent themes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell and others. ...
Brian Lynch: 7X7BY7
by Jack Bowers
The number seven, which for reasons shrouded in mystery, has long been considered a symbol of good luck, lies at the core of trumpeter Brian Lynch's latest album, 7X7BY7, which consists of seven themes performed by seven musicians with each number clocking in at precisely six seconds past seven minutes. Furthermore, it is said, “the...process [of ...
Jack Bowers' Best Jazz Albums Of 2024
by Jack Bowers
On a personal note, this is unlike any “best of the year" summaries I've written during my more than twenty-five years as a reviewer for All About Jazz. The reason is that I fell in late April and broke my left femur. As a result, I completed no reviews from that time until early September, a ...
