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Kevin Mahogany: Kevin Mahogany Big Band
by Jack Bowers
Kevin Mahogany, the Kansas City cyclone, would sound terrific singing in the shower or standing on his head. The presence of a big band (actually four) on nine of the ten selections on his newest album is merely icing on the cake. No, this isn't actually “the Kevin Mahogany Big Band, but the four bands represented ...
The Straight Ahead Jazz Combo: Book Six!
by Jack Bowers
The Straight Ahead Jazz Combo is comprised of six members of the Redding, California-based Straight Ahead Big Band, including its leader, saxophonist Steve Fischer, and vocalist, Nancy Fischer. Unlike other groups for whom the singer serves as a change of pace or pleasant distraction, the Straight Ahead Combo is actually enhanced when Nancy Fischer commands the ...
Galen Jeter and Dallas' Original Jazz Orchestra: Big 30
by Jack Bowers
The title of the Dallas Jazz Orchestra's latest album, properly pronounced Big Three-Oh, denotes the thirtieth anniversary of this remarkable big band from deep in the heart of Texas. And what better way to celebrate than by doing what DOJO does best--creating wonderful big-band jazz en masse and swinging like there's no tomorrow. For three decades, ...
The Pat Longo Big Band: The Hit List
by Jack Bowers
Okay, Pat, granted you have a splendid band, and there's an abundance of good-natured camaraderie and energy on The Hit List--but a playing time of less than 35 minutes is clearly unacceptable for a compact disc, which will accommodate up to eighty. Truth be told, this enterprise--with no liner notes or recording dates, no list of ...
The Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra: WJO
by Jack Bowers
On its self-titled debut album, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra offers the listener the best of two possible worlds--a thinking person's big band that also swings. There's a lot happening in these ten original compositions (including the two-part French-Canadian/Métis Suite), but the elaborate charts seldom interrupt the band's essential purpose, to present high-caliber music that is not ...
Chris Vadala: Out of the Shadows
by Jack Bowers
For me, Chris Vadala stepped “out of the shadows" the first time I heard him perform as a guest artist at an IAJE conference. “Who is this guy," I thought to myself, “and where has he been hiding?" I later learned that he had logged serious time with the Chuck Mangione Quintet, appeared on more than ...
The Spokane Jazz Orchestra: It's About Time
by Jack Bowers
What a great title. The Spokane (WA) Jazz Orchestra, now in its thirtieth year, has at last seen fit to record its first album, and, yes, It's About Time. In fact, long past time--but better late than never. It's surely about time the rest of the country was introduced to a band that has staunchly served ...
Bill Watrous/Temple Jazz Orchestra: Live
by Jack Bowers
This is the second recording by the Temple (Texas) Jazz Orchestra (following '01's Soft Lights, Sweet Music ) and this time Tom Fairlie's forceful ensemble has some help--we're talking big-time help in the person of superstar trombonist Bill Watrous, whose upper-register pyrotechnics enhance all but the opening number of this high-kicking concert recorded in March '03. ...
Cal State Sacramento Latin Jazz Ensemble: Con Sentimiento
by Jack Bowers
I've always been fond of Latin music but have often been turned off because so much of it is vocal. No such problem here; everything is instrumental, and even though most of the guys in Cal State University Sacramento's Latin Jazz Ensemble are Anglo, their rhythmic awareness invests the music with an authenticity reminiscent of the ...
Sherisse Rogers's Project Uprising: Sleight of Hand
by Jack Bowers
After receiving for review a copy of Sherisse Rogers' debut album, Sleight of Hand, I remembered having seen her at the IAJE conference last January in Long Beach, CA, conducting “Chacagliatu,"? one of the selections from the album, which earned top honors for an emerging composer in the IAJE/ASCAP Commissions honoring Count Basie, in spite of ...
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