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Igor Butman: Only Now
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 ...
Matt Olson: Open Spaces
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 ...
The Larry Douglas Alltet: Dedications
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, ...
Ben Thomas (US): Eternal Aporia
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 ...
Sean Fyfe Quartet: Late Night
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 ...
Doug Scarborough: The Color of Angels
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.
The Matt Gordy Jazz Tonite Sextet: Be With Me
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, ...
Pete Malinverni: On the Town: Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein
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 yearsever 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 ...
Jack Bowers: Top 15 Albums of 2021
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 ...
Rodger Fox Big Band: You Gotta Know
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 ...


