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Alan Barnes All Stars: The Marbella Jazz Suite
by Jack Bowers
All Stars they're labeled, and All Stars they are. Saxophonist Alan Barnes leads eight of Great Britain's most accomplished post bop musicians through their paces on the Marbella Jazz Suite, a series of scenic sketches drawn by Barnes to honor the Spanish city where he and the band performed at the Marbella Jazz Festival in May, ...
Mark Colby: Speaking of Stan
by Jack Bowers
Mark Colby, who may be the finest tenor saxophonist you've never heard, pays tribute to a close friend on Speaking of Stan--a friend who happened to be one of the most renowned masters of the tenor who ever lived, the incomparable Stan Getz. Colby and Getz first met in 1963, when Mark was fourteen years old ...
DJO: Thirty Years and Counting
by Jack Bowers
I was reminded recently that the Dallas Jazz Orchestra is now more than thirty years old (which I should have known after reviewing its latest album, The Big 3-0, recorded in 2004). That's a long time for any big band to stay together, and would have been true even the in so-called Big Band Era, when ...
Gerald Wilson Orchestra: In My Time
by Jack Bowers
While the question of who's our finest contemporary big band composer/arranger could be debated for days on end without any resolution, there's no doubt about who's the dean. Gerald Wilson, who celebrated his 87th birthday in September, wrote his first chart ("Yard Dog Mazurka ) for the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra circa 1940. In case you're keeping ...
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Don't Be Afraid... The Music of Charles Mingus
by Jack Bowers
With the Mingus Big Band keeping the music of its namesake alive and flourishing, the question arises, is there a need for another band to canvass the same territory? Apparently the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra believes so, hence its newest album, Don't Be Afraid... The Music of Charles Mingus. Well, some of the music anyway, as ...
Swingadelic: Big Band Blues
by Jack Bowers
As its name implies, Swingadelic, a “little big band from Hoboken, New Jersey, focuses primarily on music from the Swing Era, especially the blues. The band has no vocalist as such; instead, various members of the ensemble double in that capacity, with some faring better than others. There are vocals on eight of the album's twelve ...
Alex Budman and the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra: Instruments of Mass Pleasure
by Jack Bowers
Mass Pleasure is the fourth album by the San Francisco-based Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, which is contemporary in the best sense of the word; that is, belonging to this age and time. While the nine charts are as modern as one could envision, they are firmly grounded in time-honored jazz and musical tradition, never forswearing rhythmic or ...
Sandvika Storband: Live at B
by Jack Bowers
Even though the Sandvika Storband (big band) is tucked away in an enclave near Norway's capital, Oslo, far removed from the antennae of most listeners outside northern Europe, you'd have to travel the world over to find a more proficient ensemble. As I wrote when reviewing Sandvika's album Greenhouse - Live at Smuget six years ago, ...
University of Northern Iowa Jazz Band One: Memento
by Jack Bowers
Good as the University of Northern Iowa's Jazz Band One is--and trust me, it's amazingly good--the first thing one notices about the group's most recent album, Memento, is how remarkably bright and clear the recording is. This is how a big band should sound on a disc, with soloists and sections evenly balanced and sharply defined, ...
The John La Barbera Big Band: Fantazm
by Jack Bowers
Fantazm is the second album by the John La Barbera Big Band, following last year's impressive debut, On the Wild Side. While the songs are new, almost everything else, we are happy to report, remains invariable--even the band's personnel is essentially the same, with guitarist Larry Koonse added on two tracks. La Barbera's charts (he arranged ...
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