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The Jim Self-John Chiodini Duo: Feels So Good
by Jack Bowers
Tuba maestro Jim Self and gregarious guitarist John Chiodini unite for the fifth time on Feels So Good, a studio date whose title neatly encapsulates its upbeat vibe. Even though it seems at first blush that the tuba and guitar should be playing in different leagues, Self and Chiodini somehow make the odd mixture work. Self ...
The New Wonders: Steppin' Out
by Jack Bowers
Although the ten songs performed by cornetist Mike Davis' Brooklyn-based septet, The New Wonders, on the group's second album, Steppin' Out, are well removed from new, most have stood the test of time and remained popular with a small yet devoted number of trad jazz enthusiasts, some for a century or more. The New Wonders carry ...
Rich Willey: Boptism Christmas
by Jack Bowers
With seasonal jazz albums in rather short supply this year, it is a pleasure to welcome Boptism Christmas, a series of mostly well- known holiday tunes ably performed by multi-instrumentalist Rich Willey and his impressive North Carolina-based octet-plus-one. The “plus one" applies to Tracks 5 and 6, on which Russ Wilson joins the ...
Jon De Lucia: The Brubeck Octet Project
by Jack Bowers
Having formed his jazz octet in 2016 for a project at City College of New York, where he was then teaching, Brooklyn-based alto saxophonist Jon De Lucia had to find new music to keep it going--a search that led him to the archives at Mills College, which housed many of Dave Brubeck's original handwritten charts among ...
Visions Jazz Ensemble: Across the Field
by Jack Bowers
Here is a unique and intriguing concept: a baker's dozen collegiate anthems and fight songs, trimly recast in contemporary jazz settings by the seven-member Visions Jazz Ensemble, comprised of Indiana University alumni who stride Across the Field with an abundance of proficiency and perception. Although the hip arrangements by the ensemble's co-leaders, trumpeter ...
USAF Airmen of Note: Aim High/The 2024 Jazz Heritage Series
by Jack Bowers
Aim High, recorded as part of the 2024 Jazz Heritage Series, is the forty-sixth album by the U.S. armed services' premier jazz ensemble, the Airmen of Note, founded in 1950 to honor the tradition of Major Glenn Miller's Army Air Corps dance band, which entertained the troops during World War II until Miller's untimely death in ...
Jeff Rupert: It Gets Better
by Jack Bowers
Florida-based tenor saxophonist Jeff Rupert leads a superlative quartet on It Gets Better, a graceful and charming album recorded September 2021 at the renowned Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey. While comparisons to other musicians are as a rule less than viable, the striking similarities between Rupert and the late jazz giant Stan Getz cannot simply ...
John Fedchock: Justifiably J.J.
by Jack Bowers
Among jazz trombonists with a sense of history, the name J.J. Johnson is spoken with an admiration that borders on reverence. Johnson was a pacesetter, a creative and articulate slideman and improviser who, either alone or with sometime partner Kai Winding, held the keys to the trombone kingdom from the early 1940s until his retirement more ...
Pony Boy All-Star Big Band: This Is Now
by Jack Bowers
This Is Now is a venturous and engaging concert date by the Pony Boy All-Star Big Band, taped in May 2024 at Boxley's jazz club in North Bend, Washington. Pony Boy refers to the band's label, Pony Boy Records, while the term All-Star is, as always, in the eye (and ear) of the beholder. Clearly, there ...
Terry Gibbs: Dream Band, Vol. 7: The Lost Tapes, 1959
by Jack Bowers
In 1959, vibraphonist Terry Gibbs and his recently formed big band set up shop at the Seville, a Los Angeles nightclub owned by Harry Schiller. Many of those early sessions were taped, at Gibbs' request, by famed recording engineer Wally Heider before being left on a shelf and forgotten. After two weeks at the Seville, Gibbs ...
