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Leigh Pilzer: Beatin' the Odds
by Jack Bowers
Beatin' the Odds. To baritone saxophonist Leigh Pilzer, that is far more than a catchphrase: it is a grim yet ultimately happy reality. In 2017, Pilzer was diagnosed with cancer. After extensive treatments, her odds of surviving more than five years were reckoned as around thirty percent. But six years have gone by, and not only ...
Geoff Stradling: Nimble Digits
by Jack Bowers
Remember the good old days when bandleaders would give a downbeat and their bands would start swinging and keep on doing so until their audiences literally begged for more? Welcome to the past--present tense--courtesy of pianist Geoff Stradling's superb Los Angeles-based StradBand, which swings heartily and with seldom a pause on its radiant and power-laden introductory ...
Andy Ezrin: I Was Here
by Jack Bowers
Pianist Andy Ezrin should be heard more often, and by a far wider audience. Like all commanders of the keyboard, he can make his chosen instrument sing, sigh, sway or soar, as he does the Fender Rhodes and Hammond B3 organ whenever he so chooses. On I Was Here, Ezrin doubles as composer, performing thirteen of ...
Curtis Taylor: Taylor Made
by Jack Bowers
Trumpeter and composer Curtis Taylor's debut album, he writes in the liner notes, “was over twenty years in the making." Ever since he was a teenager, Taylor confesses, he dreamed of recording his music with a group of stellar musicians and calling it Taylor Made. And now he has. The album's cover mirrors ...
Grace Kelly with Strings: At the Movies
by Jack Bowers
Saxophonist Grace Kelly, who some years ago graduated from the Child Prodigy class in which she was a prominent member, has entered her third decade by recording for the first time with a string-based orchestra. The theme is At the Movies, and Kelly opens with a James Bond medley and closes with five themes from Walt ...
Ron Rieder: Latin Jazz Sessions
by Jack Bowers
Even while pursuing a long and successful career in the physical sciences, Bostonian Ron Rieder never abandoned his life-long love for jazz, especially the tantalizing melodies and lively rhythms of Latin America, composing music at every opportunity before returning to writing full-time and at long last recording his debut album, Latin Jazz Sessions It ...
OSU Jazz Orchestra: Angular Tuesday
by Jack Bowers
The splendid Oklahoma State University Jazz Orchestra seldom pauses for breath on Angular Tuesday, its third album under director Tommy Poole. The ensemble enters as though shot from a cannon on Don Menza's frenzied “Time Check," and keeps on swinging and swaying through a lively program that encompasses sunlit compositions by Maria Schneider, Bob Mintzer, Thad ...
Troy Roberts: Green Lights
by Jack Bowers
There is an abundance of listenable music on Green Lights, the album from New York-based tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts--his sixteenth as leader in sixteen years. Clearly, he must be doing something right. That “something" includes playing graceful and eloquent tenor, mustering admirable sidemen for this quartet date, and focusing on largely agreeable music ...
Jeremy Pelt: Tomorrow's Another Day
by Jack Bowers
Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, a force on the jazz scene for more than two decades, simply does his own thing on Tomorrow's Another Day, the twenty-fourth album as leader of his own groups, inviting any interested listeners to come on board for the ride. Pelt's thing these days apparently includes an abundance of special effects, reverb, heavy ...
Ian Carey: Strange Arts
by Jack Bowers
Wood Metal Plastic is a septet that consists of a jazz quartet (trumpet, alto saxophone, bass, drums) and three-member string section presided over by San Francisco Bay area-based trumpeter Ian Carey, who wrote and arranged the material on his seventh album as leader, Strange Arts. It was recorded as a tribute to Carey's father, the innovative ...
