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170

Article: Album Review

Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra: Ways of Seeing

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

The resourceful Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, which is quite adept a cooking up appetizing straight–ahead big–band Jazz but prefers a more piquant menu, varies the ingredients for maximum taste appeal on Ways of Seeing, a concert performance recorded in October ’97 at Sydney, Australia’s leading Jazz club, The Basement. The easily digested mainstream fare (“This Bass ...

124

Article: Album Review

Highlight Big Band: Tros Sesjon

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

The Highlight Jazz Orchestra’s name should be plural instead of singular, as Tros Sesjon, the Netherlands–based big band’s debut recording from March ’98, consists of one dazzling highlight after another. It helps, of course, to stack the deck with such awesomely talented touring artists as trombonist Bart van Lier and saxophonist Leo Janssen, but the ensemble ...

188

Article: Album Review

Clare Fischer / Metropole Orchestra: The Latin Side

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

Continuing its series of collaborations with well–known American Jazz musicians, the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra travels south of the border, figuratively speaking, for a program of Latin Jazz by one of its leading exponents, composer/pianist Clare Fischer. The eight studio tracks, conducted by longtime music director Rob Pronk, were recorded in 1991; the ninth, “C.P.,” was recorded ...

529

Article: Album Review

Ralph Carmichael Big Band: Ralph Carmichael and Friends Live / Big Band Christmas

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

Ralph Carmichael, one of America’s most prominent born–again bandleaders, has abundant faith in big bands and in their capacity to help deliver a Christian–centered message of love, peace and redemption. Friends Live was recorded at Southern California College in Costa Mesa, 50 years after Carmichael’s graduation, class of ’47. As the song titles — “The Savior ...

126

Article: Album Review

Brussels Jazz Orchestra: Live

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

Although Belgium doesn’t leap readily to mind when the conversation turns to hotbeds of Jazz, that country has produced a handful of outstanding Jazz musicians — Toots Thielemans, Bobby Jaspar and a few others — and boasts at least one world–class big band, the Brussels Jazz Orchestra. On Live, recorded in May ’97, the BJO performs ...

309

Article: Album Review

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Highlights from the Centennial Edition

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

A three–disc Ellington hors d’oeuvre, assembled to whet one’s appetite for the main course, a comprehensive 24–volume boxed set entitled The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings, 1927–1973, honoring the memory of the maestro in the hundredth year since his birth. As we mentioned last month, the set includes a complete discography, personnel ...

147

Article: Album Review

Sandvika Storband: Greenhouse -- Live at Smuget

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

Far from being “dead,” as some have seen fit to pronounce them, big bands are alive and flourishing in countries all over the world — and in every country there are one or two names that set the standard for excellence. In Norway, that name is Sandvika. I’ll tell you how good these guys are. Add ...

179

Article: Album Review

University of Northern Iowa Jazz Band One: Games

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

Mark my word, the day of the big band will return. The reason I say that is because music this good can’t remain unnoticed or unappreciated forever. With Jazz Studies programs proliferating and the number of young people in college ensembles increasing, it stands to reason that one of the by–products would be a larger and ...

410

Article: Album Review

Nebraska Jazz Orchestra: Christmas Jazz

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

While I hesitate to use the word “best” when referring to music (as one too often has to swallow and digest that word), I can’t resist observing that the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra opens Christmas Jazz with the best arrangement of “The Little Drummer Boy” I’ve ever heard. It’s by the band’s talented young guitarist, transplanted Vermonter ...

163

Article: Album Review

Bobby Burgess Big Band Explosion: Butters Idea

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

If the name Bobby Burgess sounds vaguely familiar, you may remember him as an outstanding trombonist with the Stan Kenton and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestras and big bands led by Woody Herman, Buddy Rich and others before he moved to Germany in the early ’70s. Bobby played with a number of Germany’s leading ensembles, chiefly the ...