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John Fedchock NY Sextet: Into The Shadows
by Jack Bowers
If a sextet--or a group of any size--is to be measured by the sum of its parts, trombonist John Fedchock's NY Sextet succeeds with flying colors, as it embodies half a dozen of the finest jazz musicians the New York City area has to offer. As we know, however, an inclusive appraisal rests on far more ...
The Mark Masters Ensemble: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook
by Jack Bowers
Night Talk, the eighth album by celebrated arranger Mark Masters' superb West Coast-based ensemble, is subtitled “The Alec Wilder Songbook Featuring Gary Smulyan." Indeed, Smulyan's is an impressive solo voice (but hardly the only one) in an eloquent songbook that appraises eight of Wilder's tasteful compositions, including a pair of his best-known melodies, “Moon and Sand" ...
Derrick Gardner & The Big dig! Band: Still I Rise
by Jack Bowers
Trumpeter Derrick Gardner, a Chicagoan who has performed around the world with a who's who of jazz luminaries from Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Foster to Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett and Harry Connick Jr., to name only a few, traveled to Winnipeg, Canada, to assemble and record his Big Dig! Band, several sizes removed from ...
Larry Willis: I Fall in Love Too Easily
by Jack Bowers
I Fall in Love Too Easily is subtitled “The Final Session at Rudy Van Gelder's," as it is not only descriptively but literally the last recording session by veteran pianist Larry Willis, who died at age seventy-six in September 2019, one year after the album was completed at the renowned Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs, ...
Dena DeRose: Ode to the Road
by Jack Bowers
To those who may have wondered what ever happened to singer / pianist Dena DeRose, the answer is nothing—and everything. DeRose has lived for the last fifteen years in Graz, Austria, where she is professor of jazz voice at the University of Music and the Performing Arts. She still tours frequently, sometimes returning “home" to the ...
Purdie / Fabian / Oswanski: Move On!
by Jack Bowers
No one receives top billing in this tight-knit trio, which embodies organist Ron Oswanski, bassist Christian Fabian and drummer Bernard “Pretty" Purdie. And that is as it should be, as each of them is indispensable to its success. That success is further predicated on how well the three amigos enhance an agenda that is heavily laden ...
Jeff Hamilton Trio: Catch Me If You Can
by Jack Bowers
Any trio anchored by drummer Jeff Hamilton has a clear head start when compared to any would-be rivals. That's because Hamilton's unerring and tasteful timekeeping and resourceful use of brushes and sticks would be any trio's dream come true. In this case it's Hamilton's own trio, recording at least the sixteenth album under that name, the ...
Swingadelic: Bluesville
by Jack Bowers
If you're partial to music that is sunny and freewheeling and almost commands a smile, you should have no trouble warming to Bluesville, the eighth recording by New Jersey-based Swingadelic, now twenty-two years old and counting. As its name implies, the orchestra (more often than not a mini-big band a dozen or so strong) re-creates an ...
Madre Vaca: Winterreise
by Jack Bowers
For its third recording, the Florida-based jazz octet Madre Vaca has chosen to perform music by Franz Schubert—hold it; stop right there! Music by who? Yes, that's what it says—music by none other than Franz Schubert (1797-1828), an Austrian composer of what we know as classical music who in his brief lifetime wrote more than 600 ...
Spirabassi: Improkofiev
by Jack Bowers
There haven't been many jazz quartets whose front line consists solely of a soprano saxophone (Wayne Shorter's is the only one that springs readily to mind). The cleverly named Spirabassi pairs French-born soprano saxophonist Stephane Spira with Italian-bred pianist Giovanni Mirabassi in a group whose other members are bassist Steve Wood and a second Frenchman, drummer ...
