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Kenny Drew Jr.: Passionata
by Jack Bowers
Beautiful music, beautifully recorded and played. Pianist Kenny Drew Jr.'s love for and debt to his late father are apparent with almost every note he plays on Passionata, the title selection of which was drawn from a sketchy outline that young Kenny found in his father's desk after Drew Sr. passed away in 1993. This is ...
Gap Mangione Big Band: Planet Gap
by Jack Bowers
My guess would be that most of those who are reading this (if any are, that is) have heard of trumpeter Chuck Mangione. What some may not know is that Chuck has a piano-playing brother, Gap, and that Gap has his own thundering big band. While the notion hardly qualifies as a scientific survey, one may ...
The National Youth Jazz Orchestra: 47 Frith Street
by Jack Bowers
Although the competition is getting ever keener, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra remains No. 1 among Great Britain's big bands, as affirmed in the country's most recent poll and reinforced by their latest recording, another remarkable tour de force whose wonderful compositions and arrangements are given typically excellent readings by an orchestra that shows no weaknesses ...
Bobby Shew with the Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra: Easy to Love
by Jack Bowers
As guest trumpeter Bobby Shew says in his liner notes to Easy to Love - and I certainly won't disagree - “the MYJO is hot!" Bobby adds that the Midlands-based ensemble is “one of the finest youth bands" with which he has ever performed. Again, no argument from this quarter. I've been an enthusiastic partisan since ...
Ernie Krivda & The Fat Tuesday Big Band: Perdido
by Jack Bowers
As spring slowly runs its course and summer's warmth entices us, here's an early front-runner in the competition for Big Band Album of the Year. Ernie Krivda's Cleveland-based Fat Tuesday Band is a monstrous fire-breathing dragon with great charts, excellent soloists and, above all, a charming un-dragonlike personality all its own. There are, of course, a ...
The Rich Corpolongo Quartet: Smiles
by Jack Bowers
One has to admire Rich Corpolongo for going his own way, and Delmark Records for providing a creative platform on which the reed virtuoso from Chicago is able to display his talents. Unfortunately, “admire" is not synonymous with “enjoy." While there are some pleasurable moments on Corpolongo's second Delmark release (following last year's Just Found Joy), ...
Mike Vax Big Band: I Remember You
by Jack Bowers
This affectionate tribute to Stan Kenton (and to composer/arranger Johnny Richards and trombonist Dick Shearer) by trumpeter Mike Vax and the “Kenton Alumni Band" was recorded onstage at the 25th anniversary Morningside (Iowa) College Jazz Festival in February 1997. It has the reverberant ambiance of a concert date too, which is especially noticeable in the sound ...
Al Belletto Big Jazz Band: Jazznocracy
by Jack Bowers
Thoroughly enjoyable. Although the live recording venue does him no favors, alto saxophonist Al Belletto - yes, the same Al Belletto whose swinging sextet recorded for Capitol, Bethlehem and other labels in the mid-'50s and '60s - has assembled quite an admirable big band way down yonder in his New Orleans home. Among its sidemen are ...
George Bugatti: Oh, What a Night for Love
by Jack Bowers
For his debut album, California- based singer George Bugatti has torn a dozen pages from the “Steve Allen Songbook" in a cabaret-style session whose laid-back temperament calls to mind Bobby Short, Buddy Greco or Frank D'Rone. Bugatti employs the same nonchalant, sometimes almost whispered approach that is the mark of an experienced lounge singer, which he ...
Niacin: High Bias
by Jack Bowers
A little Niacin can do no harm as long as one knows in advance what is being digested and why. Niacin is simply the good old-fashioned organ (or piano)/bass/drums trio updated for the '90s. There's a Jazz core but it is overlaid with a rock beat, awash in electronically generated sound, and marked by a decibel ...
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