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The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra: The Lights Suite
by Jack Bowers
A brief preamble: while spending last Thanksgiving with my wife's sister and her family in Palo Alto, CA, I had the radio tuned to KCSM-FM in San Mateo (a 24-hour Jazz station, naturally) whose weekday noontime feature is an album played in its entirety without interruption. On this particular day the album chosen was by a ...
The Crissy Lee Jazz Orchestra: . . .with Body and Soul
by Jack Bowers
The second album by drummer Crissy Lee’s UK–based Jazz Orchestra is encased in the equivalent of a plain brown wrapper (no liner notes, composer or arranger credits, biographical or other information, the solo order furnished in type so small that one needs a magnifying glass to read it) but good things sometimes do come in unassuming ...
Abe Laboriel / Peter Donald / Tom Ranier: 3Prime
by Jack Bowers
Pianist Tom Ranier, bassist Abe Laboriel and drummer Peter Donald are 3Prime, and the music they produce on this self–titled album, recorded live at Rocco in Bel Air, California, is Grade A Choice. While these are brash and assertive players who don’t tiptoe around the changes, the result of their endeavor is so synchronous that one ...
Eldad Tarmu: Aluminum Forest
by Jack Bowers
With an uncelebrated vibraphonist at the helm of an album titled Aluminum Forest, I was bracing myself for music aimed straight toward the heart of “smooth Jazz” radio. Wrong. This is uncompromisingly straight–ahead post–bop Jazz — and I should have guessed as much from the list of personnel, which includes such prominent names as trumpeters Oscar ...
Dave Frishberg: By Himself
by Jack Bowers
Somewhat like Nat King Cole, whose “unforgettable” vocal stylings made him wealthy and famous but changed him from a Jazz pianist to a popular entertainer, Dave Frishberg’s virtuosity as a pianist has been overshadowed by other concerns, namely his well–known talents as a singer / songwriter whose hip lyrics always leave one smiling knowingly and nodding ...
The Western Michigan University Jazz Orchestra: Cosmosis
by Jack Bowers
No letdown here. The fifth album by one of the country’s most honored college–level Jazz ensembles, the Western Michigan University Jazz Orchestra, is as impressive as those that preceded it — and the first four (two of which received Grammy Award nominations) were outstanding. WMU establishes a swinging groove on Mike Abene’s explosive arrangement of Sonny ...
The Sydney All-Star Big Band: Doin' Our Thing
by Jack Bowers
Fans of big–band Jazz may rest assured that things are swingin’ Down Under, and here’s the proof — nearly an hour of invigorating straight–ahead Jazz by the talented Sydney All–Star Big Band led by trumpeter Ralph Pyl in its long–overdue coming–out party. All but one of the nine selections on Doin’ Our Thing were written by ...
The Lancashire Students' Jazz Orchestra: Last Call
by Jack Bowers
Webster defines a “student” as, among other things, “an attentive and systematic observer.” The young musicians in the Lancashire Students’ Jazz Orchestra — whose average age, we’re told, is fifteen — have evidently been paying close attention to their teachers, as the orchestra is much better schooled than one would expect from those who are wrestling ...
Rich Wetzel's Groovin' Higher Orchestra: Live at Jazzbones
by Jack Bowers
More swinging big--band Jazz from Washington State. On the heels of Kevin Seeley's superb Emerald City ensemble from Seattle (Alive and Swingin,', SMP 0004) comes this two--disc set by trumpeter Rich Wetzel's far less polished but no less earnest Groovin' Higher Orchestra, recorded in concert at Jazzbones in Tacoma, where the band has been performing for ...
H.B. Radke and the Jet City Swingers: Live!
by Jack Bowers
This is hardly Jazz, but like much of the neo–swing music being heard these days, it’s a lot of fun. The album cover says Live!, so we’ll have to concede the point, even though it’s hard to tell whether the “audience” is real or electronically created. Whichever the case, the applause is well–earned, as H.B. Radke ...
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