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Peter DiCarlo: Onward
by Jack Bowers
New York City-based alto saxophonist Peter DiCarlo makes a lot of winning moves on his debut album, Onward, and a couple that seem more puzzling than perceptive. More about them later. First, it should be noted that DiCarlo is a virtuosic player with a burnished sound and enough improvisational ammunition in his arsenal to guide him ...
Chris Nordman Trio: High Wire
by Jack Bowers
Time was when people retired to Florida to bask in the sunshine, play some golf and tend their backyard gardens. That was then; this is now. Pianist and organist Chris Nordman, who has roamed the world for more than half a century as a working musician and now calls Florida home, has no plans to rest ...
Jeff Benedict Big Band: The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful
by Jack Bowers
As saxophonist Jeff Benedict is a professor emeritus of music at California State University-Los Angeles, he shouldn't be overly concerned if an impartial observer should decide to grade the southern California-based Jeff Benedict Big Band's second album, The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful. After careful listening, herewith is the report card. Brass and reeds: ...
Yuma Jazz Company: A Night Such As This
by Jack Bowers
Spurning a global pandemic and daytime temperatures hot enough to fry an egg, the dauntless Yuma Jazz Company remains steadfastly open for business. That's Yuma as in Yuma, Arizona, a city of roughly 100,00 hardy souls tucked into the southwestern corner of the state, midway between Phoenix and San Diego, touted online as “the Gateway to ...
Flying Horse Big Band: Florida Rays
by Jack Bowers
On its seventh recording, Florida Rays, the University of Central Florida's always dependable Flying Horse Big Band abandons its usual modus operandi—straight-from-the-hip contemporary jazz--to survey music associated with R&B legend (and Florida native) Ray Charles. As Charles, an accomplished musician, was best known as a vocalist, one might anticipate (correctly) that a handful of Charles' progeny ...
The Justin Rothberg Group: Hurricane Mouse
by Jack Bowers
The Justin Rothberg Group is a quintet led by the versatile New York-based guitarist who wrote eleven of the dozen numbers on the group's third CD, a diverse enterprise that covers a lot of ground, from funk, fusion and blues to rock, R&B and occasional mainstream jazz. Funk is the groove in which Rothberg's sometimes abrasive ...
Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra: Bernstein Reimagined
by Jack Bowers
This impressive anthology by the superb Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra is not so much Bernstein Reimagined as Bernstein Unleashed. The jazz component in Leonard Bernstein's memorable compositions for symphony orchestra, Broadway shows, films and even liturgical works always lay simmering just below the surface. As Bernstein is said to have confided to Duke Ellington: “Maybe that's ...
The Grasso-Ravita Jazz Ensemble: Jagged Spaces
by Jack Bowers
The Baltimore-based Grasso-Ravita Jazz Ensemble is a congenial quintet co-led by guitarist Skip Grasso and bassist Phil Ravita. Its other members are saxophonist Benny Russell, pianist Greg Small and drummer Nuc Vega. Jagged Spaces, the group's debut recording, encompasses nine original compositions: four by Grasso, two each by Ravita and Russell, and one by Small.
The Len Pierro Jazz Orchestra: The Third Quarter
by Jack Bowers
Any big-band album that opens with a rollicking Four Brothers-style saxophone soli is all but guaranteed to capture one's ear and interest. As it turns out, the buoyant “Fill in the Gap," on which the sax section sparkles, is but the first of many sonic delights on The Third Quarter, a marvelous new CD by Philadelphia-based ...
Larry Newcomb Quartet: Love, Dad
by Jack Bowers
Guitarist Larry Newcomb has dedicated Love, Dad, his third recording as leader, to his three sons, one of whom—Jake Newcomb—is the bassist in his dad's quartet. Even though Larry must be elated to have a son who is walking, as it were, in his musical footsteps, it's clear that Jake isn't on board simply because his ...
