Home » Search Center » Results: Jack Bowers

Results for "Jack Bowers"

217

Article: Album Review

John Patitucci: Now

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

Bassist Patitucci's third release for Concord Jazz is essentially a quartet date with tenors Chris Potter (five tracks) and Michael Brecker (two) augmenting the rhythm section. The horns take a break on the last three tracks, McCoy Tyner's “Search for Peace" (a trio), Trane's “Giant Steps" (Patitucci, Stewart) and Patitucci alone on his own composition, “Miya." ...

121

Article: Album Review

Chris Potter Quartet: Vertigo

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

Everyone nowadays wants to be a songwriter, it seems, and young Chris Potter is no exception. All of the songs on Vertigo, Potter's fifth date under his own name for Concord Jazz, were composed by the 27-year-old South Carolinian, and none of them, to these ears, serves as more than a convenient springboard for improvisation. As ...

132

Article: Album Review

Guilherme Vergueiro: Molambo

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

If you like the piano, and appreciate the softer-flowing melodies of Latin America, you'll love Molambo, on which Guilherme Vergueiro plays unaccompanied. If you don't, you won't. It's about as simple as that. There are no up-tempo numbers here, nor are there any improvisations to speak of. Vergueiro simply plays 11 Latin tunes, almost all of ...

121

Article: Album Review

One for All: Optimism

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

Confidence. It's a quality too often overlooked, but one that is nonetheless essential in Jazz, as it enables a musician - or a group - to take chances, to go all-out and run the race at top speed without any fear of stumbling or falling flat on one's face. You can hear that confidence in Miles ...

Article: Album Review

Latin Jazz Orchestra: Havana Blues

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

Whenever the words “Latin" and “Jazz" appear side-by-side in a descriptive phrase (in this case the name of an orchestra), one can be almost certain that either one (Latin, rhythm) or the other (Jazz, improvisation) predominates. In this case, it's rhythm - but that's not to say that improvisation is entirely overlooked (there are engaging choruses ...

224

Article: Album Review

Al Sanada Big Band: Playing Sammy Nestico

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

Here's a big band that literally “walks" right into your heart, thanks to the peerless Sammy Nestico's groove-laden charts and a stellar cast of well-tempered West Coast pros who knowingly toss 'em off without breaking a decent-sized sweat. So, as Butch Cassidy wondered about the posse pursuing him and the Sundance Kid, who are these guys? ...

105

Article: Album Review

Citrus College Jazz Ensemble: Take a Number / Time Was...

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

I'd not heard of the Citrus College Jazz Ensemble (in Glendora, CA) until several weeks ago when I received an e-mail request to “check 'em out." Glad I did. Director Robert Slack and coordinator Ann Heming were kind enough to send me two discs by the ensemble. We'll comment first on Take a Number, the more ...

255

Article: Album Review

Count Basie Orchestra: Count Plays Duke

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

The Count Basie Orchestra's debut for MAMA Records embraces the best of two worlds - the Count's hard-swinging brass, reeds and rhythm and the graceful and enduring melodies of Duke Ellington (and Billy Strayhorn). It doesn't get much more inviting than that. If the Basie organization has lost any appreciable ground under the Count's successors - ...

Article: Album Review

Taverners Big Band: A Night in the Tavern

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 1998

Remember taverns? Saloons? Speakeasies? They're called nightclubs now. Or restaurants. Or supper clubs - at least, in this neck of the woods they are. But merrie olde England still has its monarchy and its taverns, and even has a Taverners Big Band, the idea for whose formation was born in 1983 after an evening of Christmas ...

110

Article: Album Review

Anthony Wilson: Goat Hill Junket

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 1998

Guitarist Anthony Wilson, whose debut was nominated last year for a Grammy Award, has neatly sidestepped the sophomore jinx on his latest release for the MAMA Foundation thanks to his creative writing and steadfast support from his New York-based sidemen. This one's in a somewhat funkier groove than Wilson's earlier effort with pianist Mike LeDonne playing ...