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Results for "Jack Bowers"
Dwayne Clemons: Center of Gravity: Live at Smalls
by Jack Bowers
On Center of Gravity, veteran trumpeter Dwayne Clemons displays his astuteness and savvy in a generally impressive session recorded in September 2023 at Smalls Jazz Club in New York City, leading a sextet in which he shares the front line with alto saxophonist Amanda Sedgwick and tenor Aaron Johnson. This is a colorful ...
Brad Goode: Polytonal Big Band: The Snake Charmer
by Jack Bowers
"Polytonal," according to Webster's, denotes “the simultaneous use of two or more musical keys." Denver-based trumpeter and educator Brad Goode makes full use of that technique on The Snake Charmer, the debut recording by Goode's well-named Polytonal Big Band. When all has been written and played, two things are clear: first, Goode is a world-class big-band ...
Randy Hoexter: Tomorrowsville
by Jack Bowers
Several words spring to mind when listening to the music of Atlanta-based composer, arranger and pianist Randy Hoexter. Colorful is one, wide-ranging is another. Not to mention creative, robust and well-ordered. Each of those traits and more are deftly combined in Hoexter's latest album, Tomorrowsville, on which he leads a high-grade ensemble through its paces on ...
The Sofia Goodman Group: Receptive
by Jack Bowers
Receptive is the third album as leader of the Sofia Goodman Group by Nashville, Tennessee-based drummer and composer Goodman, following 2018's Myriad of Flowers and 2023's Secrets of the Shore, both on Joyous Records. As on those earlier recordings, Goodman shows her compositional skills with a series of mostly meditative and personal themes designed to entice ...
The Len Pierro Jazz Orchestra: As I Was Saying
by Jack Bowers
Remember the good old days before high-tech hardware and software seized control and the country's leading big bands were recorded in a studio or in concert employing a wide dynamic range with no overdubs or splices to enhance the performance? Composer and arranger Len Pierro does, which is why he planned As I Was Saying, the ...
Roberto Magris Europlane for Jazz: Freedom Is Peace
by Jack Bowers
After twenty years making beautiful music elsewhere, the members of Italian-born pianist and composer Roberto Magris' stellar sextet, Europlane, have reunited to record a second album, Freedom Is Peace, a sequel to the ensemble's impressive debut, Check-In (Soul Note, 2005). As before, snugly swinging bop-centered jazz is the order of the day; and as before, Magris ...
Paul Kendall: My Shining Hour
by Jack Bowers
If you were to randomly draw the names of “most charming and best-loved American popular standards" out of a hat, chances are you could not fare much better than Pennsylvania-based baritone saxophonist Paul Kendall has by design on My Shining Hour, a splendid album whose playlist encompasses no less than eight singular and seductive melodies from ...
David Caffey Jazz Orchestra: At the Edge of Spring
by Jack Bowers
With his album, At the Edge of Spring, composer and arranger David Caffey and his Colorado-based Jazz Orchestra not only defy the widely-held belief that big bands are dead, they emphatically blow that axium out of the water. This is an ensemble with no discernible weaknesses, as proficient and powerful as any that have come before ...
The Dam Jawn: Forward!
by Jack Bowers
An addendum to the title of the Amsterdam-based quintet Dam Jawn's latest album, Forward!, reads “featuring Dick Oatts," which is perfectly suitable, as the acclaimed alto saxophonist plays a pivotal role in the tight-knit group's latest discourse, as he did on its earlier recording, Master Street (Challenge Records, 2023). For those who may ...
Carn Davidson 9: Reverence
by Jack Bowers
The Carn Davidson 9 is a Toronto, Canada-based nonet co-led by trombonist William Carn and saxophonist Tara Davidson whose fourth studio album, Reverence, encompasses a pair of four-part suites, one written by Carn, the other by Davidson. What is most interesting --over and above the depth and quality of the music--is that the suites are not ...
