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The Pete Cater Big Band: Upswing!
by Jack Bowers
The Pete Cater Big Band earned top honors among larger groups last year in the annual Post Office–sponsored British Jazz Awards competition. If you’d like to know why, simply listen to Upswing!, the band’s second album and first on the Vocalion label. From pianist Matt O’Regan’s breezy introduction to his splendid arrangement of Jerome Kern’s “The ...
The JazzMn Big Band: When You're Smiling
by Jack Bowers
The band’s name is no misprint; “JazzMn” is shorthand for Jazz Minnesota, which in turn is another name for swinging, contemporary big–band Jazz with a midwestern accent. JazzMn is actually a non–profit alliance formed in 1998 to “promote, preserve and perpetuate America’s indigenous art music, Jazz” — something the JazzMn Big Band sets about doing with ...
Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band: Zurich 1960
by Jack Bowers
As record bins aren’t exactly overflowing with recordings by Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band, almost any new evidence of the ensemble’s remarkable prowess is welcome, even if playing time isn’t overly generous, recording quality is uneven, the choice of material prosaic, and the album’s subtitle, “featuring Zoot Sims,” alludes to only two tracks. If that sounds ...
The Terry Myers Orchestra: A Tribute to Benny Goodman
by Jack Bowers
In this earnest salute to the King of Swing, clarinetist Terry Myers and his splendid Florida–based orchestra frame impressive likenesses of songs that helped make Benny Goodman a household name when big bands ruled the musical world. While there’s nothing here that one hasn’t heard before, there’s also nothing that’s not worth hearing again (that’s what ...
The Bob Mintzer Big Band: Homage to Count Basie
by Jack Bowers
Anyone who can take my least favorite Basie recording, “April in Paris,” and make it sound as captivating as Bob Mintzer does on Homage to Count Basie (no “one more time!” or “one more once!”) has earned an enthusiastic thumbs–up without taking another step. But the talented tenor overlord doesn’t stop there; he “Mintzerizes” four other ...
Big Band Bow-Tie: Just for the Record
by Jack Bowers
Big Band Bow–Tie, which hails from southwestern Germany, is led by flugelhorn maestro Karl Farrent, a mainspring in that country’s SWR Big Band and BBB–T’s most accomplished soloist. As is true of almost every German band we’ve heard, Bow–Tie is in sync all the way, but the recording itself leaves much to be desired, shrouding the ...
The Florian Ross Brass Project: Lilacs and Laughter
by Jack Bowers
The Florian Ross Brass Project isn’t exactly a big band; on the other hand, it’s not a small group either. More like a big band in search of a reed section. The FRBP is comprised of eleven musicians, eight brass and three rhythm, under the baton of German conductor Manfred Knaak. Seven are from from Germany, ...
The UMass Jazz Ensemble 1: Live!
by Jack Bowers
The University of Massachusetts Jazz Ensemble I, whose debut album, Pay the Fiddler, earned a place on our Top Ten list in Cadence magazine of the best recordings of ’99, continues to impress on these live sessions in which the ensemble is joined on three numbers by New York–based alto saxophonist Dick Oatts. As on the ...
The Brassery: Twin Set and Pearls
by Jack Bowers
The Brassery is an energetic young student ensemble affiliated with the eight–year–old Nottinghamshire Education Brassery in Nottingham, England (yes, the home base of the infamous sheriff in Robin Hood ). The band was formed in the spring of 1992 and since then has performed at a number of venues in its area as well as at ...
The Toledo Jazz Orchestra: . . .Out of Nowhere
by Jack Bowers
Those who declaim that the big bands are dead should be required to listen to Track 1 of the Toledo Jazz Orchestra’s . . .Out of Nowhere (and perhaps the title track as well). It would be difficult to envision a livelier group of corpses! Indeed, there is nothing in the least “dead” about this album, ...
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