Home » Search Center » Results: Jack Bowers

Results for "Jack Bowers"

Advanced search options

36

Article: Album Review

Igor Butman: Only Now

Read "Only Now" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Tenor saxophonist Igor Butman, born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, is one of a number of jazz musicians from Europe and Asia whose love for the music was nourished by nightly broadcasts from the Voice of America. Since emigrating to America in 1987 (he holds dual citizenship), Butman's virtuosity has been recognized by enthusiasts up ...

33

Article: Album Review

Matt Olson: Open Spaces

Read "Open Spaces" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Pleasurable jazz can sometimes spring forth from what many enthusiasts may consider highly unlikely sources. Such is the case with Open Spaces, an earnest and charming album on which saxophonist Matt Olson ushers a quintet of barely known South Carolinians through its paces in a generally animated session that consists of ten original compositions, every one ...

33

Article: Album Review

The Larry Douglas Alltet: Dedications

Read "Dedications" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

An Alltet is apparently two groups, one with eleven musicians, the other with six. At least that is the case on trumpeter Larry Douglas' reissued debut album, Dedications, on the first half of which he leads a tentet (and auxiliary percussionist), on the second half a sextet. The dedications, Douglas writes, are to his late son, ...

28

Article: Album Review

Ben Thomas (US): Eternal Aporia

Read "Eternal Aporia" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

They say it takes two to tango. On Ben Thomas' new album, Eternal Aporia ("uncertainty; doubt"), it takes at least three, and sometimes half a dozen. That's not a bad thing, as Thomas' splendid core trio is fleshed out on three numbers by cellist Gretchen Vanover and on two others by Vanover, violinist Brandon Vance and ...

30

Article: Album Review

Sean Fyfe Quartet: Late Night

Read "Late Night" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

The opening number on pianist Sean Fyfe's latest album, Late Night, is “Happy," which could serve as a subtext for the album as a whole. Even when performing a solo rendition of Billy Strayhorn's mournful “Lush Life," Fyfe somehow manages to sound happy, lending a sunny counterweight to the heart-breaking sense of loss that permeates Strayhorn's ...

30

Article: Album Review

Doug Scarborough: The Color of Angels

Read "The Color of Angels" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

The Color of Angels, an engaging album by trombonist Doug Scarborough's sextet, blends music with a jazz heart and Middle Eastern temperament. Scarborough, who teaches at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, has worked toward expanding the jazz idiom to encompass rhythms and harmonies from countries and regions not usually associated with the music.

31

Article: Album Review

The Matt Gordy Jazz Tonite Sextet: Be With Me

Read "Be With Me" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

In 2006, drummer Matt Gordy heeded the mandate to “go west, young man," moving from Boston to Los Angeles, while he was still “young at heart," and quickly becoming a mainstay of the local scene, after years of success as a jazz and classical drummer in New England, and even with the Maracaibo, Venezuela, Symphony Orchestra, ...

28

Article: Album Review

Pete Malinverni: On the Town: Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein

Read "On the Town: Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein " reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Pianist Pete Malinverni's album, On the Town, is subtitled “Plays Leonard Bernstein," and it's an homage he has wanted to put on record for many years—ever since he met Bernstein in person while performing at an opening-night party for a production of the opera Tosca at the Met in NYC. Bernstein, he recalls, spent much of ...

8

Article: Year in Review

Jack Bowers: Top 15 Albums of 2021

Read "Jack Bowers: Top 15 Albums of 2021" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

In spite of the Covid pandemic (and sometimes because of it!), 2021 was a splendid year for big-band albums, with eleven receiving 4 1/2-star reviews and one (Out on the Coast by the David Angel Big Band) earning five stars. The dominant dozen are listed here alongside top-rated smaller-group albums by Cory Weeds, Gerry Gibbs and ...

27

Article: Album Review

Rodger Fox Big Band: You Gotta Know

Read "You Gotta Know" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

As trombonist Rodger Fox's superb New Zealand-based big band thunders toward its golden anniversary in 2023, the recordings keep coming. Here are two more, the first (Live) taped in October 2020 during what must have been a much longer concert at the Bruce Mason Centre in Auckland; the second, You Gotta Know, recorded that same year ...


Engage

Publisher's Desk
How AAJ Works plus Radio & Podcast News
Read on...
The place for jazz polls and surveys!
Reader Polls
Which jazz venues deserve to be on top?
Cast Your Vote Today

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletters highlight our top stories, top album reviews, website news, free songs, radio & podcast shows, news, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.