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The Empress: Square One
by Jack Bowers
The Empress is a New York City-based co-op septet whose front line consists of four saxophonists. Based on its title, the assumption is that Square One is the group's first recording as a unit. The Empress is the idea of award-winning saxophonist Pureum Jin, who enlisted the renowned German writer and saxophonist Michael Lutzeier to arrange ...
Dayna Stephens: Closer Than We Think
by Jack Bowers
A few brief observations: first, New York-based Dayna Stephens is an excellent saxophonist. Second, the other members of his quartet on Closer Than We Think, Stephens' twelfth album as a leader, are similarly proficient. Third, Stephens clearly had a specific plan in mind before entering GB's Juke Joint to record the album in May 2023, one ...
Silvano Monasterios: The River
by Jack Bowers
To enhance his musical excursion along The River, composer, arranger and pianist Silvano Monasterios invited eight talented companions on board to share the ride. He did not make it easy for them. As envisioned by Monasterios, this river is by turns placid or turbulent, sparse or overflowing--but invariably tricky to navigate and tame. ...
WDR Big Band: Bluegrass
by Jack Bowers
Violinist Darol Anger literally had a dream, one in which he was performing his bluegrass music not with the David Grisman Quintet or another small group but in front of a full-fledged big band--and in Germany, of all places. Even though it was a dream he thought would never come true, it was so vivid and ...
Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra: Mad Scientist Music
by Jack Bowers
Trombonist Ben Patterson's high-powered Jazz Orchestra from the Washington, D.C. area returns virtually intact from 2024's well-received Groove Junkies (Origin Records) with another bold and hard-hitting session that is all but guaranteed to please anyone whose musical antenna leans toward fresh and exciting big-band jazz. Its title, Mad Scientist Music, coined by Harry Schnipper, owner of ...
Zhengtao Pan Jazz Orchestra: Scenery in My Story
by Jack Bowers
Zhengtao Pan, born in Shanghai, China, less than twenty-five years ago, was already well-known as a designer of video games when he chose to move to Boston, MA, to study jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music. Scenery In My Story is Pan's debut recording as leader of his Jazz Orchestra, and as its title ...
University of Nevada-Las Vegas: Let The Good Times Roll
by Jack Bowers
If energy and enthusiasm were enough to earn a prize, the University of Nevada Las Vegas Jazz Ensemble 1 would surely have one in hand to salute its newest album, Let the Good Times Roll, a textbook lesson in buoyant and heavy-duty big-band jazz. While co-directors Dave Loeb and Nathan Tanouye enlist no fewer than seven ...
Jake Hertzog: The Ozark Concerto
by Jack Bowers
Jake Hertzog's ambitious Ozark Concerto showcases his lithe electric guitar in a well-intended but only moderately successful seven-movement opus, accompanied for the most part by the 23-member Arkansas-based Ozark Jazz Philharmonic (whose existence may seem improbable but is nonetheless true). The concerto premiered in April 2024 at the UARK Jazz Festival on the Fayetteville campus of ...
Elon Musk-Donald Trump Chainsaw Gang: MUSKrats
by Jack Bowers
If you're tired of the same-old same-old musical merry-go-round, here's a group that really shakes things up and RIPs them apart on its debut recording, MUSKrats, firing brutally and haphazardly at every melodic convention and literally taking no prisoners--aside from an occasional immigrant--as it blasts its way toward a musical coterie in which only charlatans and ...
Chris Varga: Breathe
by Jack Bowers
It is always refreshing to hear a talented vibraphonist seducing the mallets while leading a band, as is true on Breathe, Chris Varga's second recording, and the first in the U.S., following 2023's Vichara on South Korea's Mung Music label. Varga, who has been living and performing in Seoul for more than two decades, returned “home" ...
