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Article: Album Review

The Seth Weaver Big Band: Truth

Read "Truth" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Truth, the debut album by New York-based trombonist / vocalist Seth Weaver, has its ups and downs, most of which involve the leader himself. The “ups" enter the picture thanks to Weaver's five far-better-than-average compositions, the “downs" whenever he chooses to sing, as he does on three of eight numbers. Luckily, the pluses far outweigh the ...

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Article: Album Review

Jerry Bergonzi: Nearly Blue

Read "Nearly Blue" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Even though Jerry Bergonzi has nothing left to prove, after almost half a century near the top of almost every list of the jazz world's leading tenor saxophonists, he is hardly ready to sit back and rest on those laurels. On his latest album, Nearly Blue (a sequel to the well-received Spotlight on Standards), Bergonzi is ...

1

Article: Album Review

Dennis Kwok Jazz Orchestra: Windward Bound

Read "Windward Bound" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Windward Bound, the debut recording by the Toronto-based Dennis Kwok Jazz Orchestra, consists of a six-part suite “for jazz orchestra and multiple woodwind soloist." It is perhaps more than coincidental that Kwok, who wrote and arranged the sequence of tone poems based in part on his teen-age memories of sailing on Lake Ontario, also plays alto, ...

4

Article: Album Review

Cesar Cardoso: Dice of Tenors

Read "Dice of Tenors" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Dice of Tenors is Portuguese-bred tenor saxophonist Cesar Cardoso's ardent salute to a half-dozen of the world's foremost tenor saxophone masters: Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Joe Henderson and Benny Golson. To carry out that purpose, Cardoso has convened an admirable octet on which he shares the front line with trumpeter Jason Palmer, ...

4

Article: Album Review

John di Martino: Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn

Read "Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Composer / arranger Billy Strayhorn was barely twenty-three years old when he first met bandleader Duke Ellington, an encounter that would lead to a collaboration that lasted more than half of Strayhorn's life. During that time, Strayhorn wrote some of the Ellington orchestra's most acclaimed and enduring songs including “Lotus Blossom," “Chelsea Bridge," “Isfahan" and, most ...

3

Article: Album Review

Charles Pillow Ensemble: Chamber Jazz

Read "Chamber Jazz" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

Chamber Jazz, alto saxophonist Charles Pillow's eighth recording as leader of his ensemble, is a generally sedate but remarkably engaging series of tone poems that combine contemporary jazz with elements of classical music to produce a hybrid that underlines what is most harmonious and charming in each genre. Chamber Jazz is what it says, and chamber ...

5

Article: Album Review

Keith Oxman: Two Cigarettes In the Dark

Read "Two Cigarettes In the Dark" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

What's a sure way to make a pretty good tenor saxophone-led quartet even better? Simple. Invite a second tenor and make sure his name is Houston Person. That's what Denver-based Keith Oxman has done to further enhance his quartet's splendid new album, Two Cigarettes in the Dark, sharing the front line with Person on six of ...

3

Article: Album Review

Afro Blue: We Shall Overcome

Read "We Shall Overcome" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

The vocal group Afro Blue was founded (in 2002) by its director, Connaitre Miller, Jazz Voice Coordinator at Howard University in Washington, DC. Miller's approach to vocal jazz is patterned after that of such celebrated groups as Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the Manhattan Transfer and Take 6, a blueprint that has served Afro Blue well and ...

6

Article: Album Review

Joshua Jern Jazz Orchestra: Midnight Stroll

Read "Midnight Stroll" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

One can only imagine how difficult it must be, especially in such uncertain times, for any musician to decide that the time has come to assemble a big band and usher it into a recording studio, let alone one whose name and reputation are, more than likely, scarcely known outside his own neighborhood. Thumbing his nose ...

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Article: Album Review

Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

Read "New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers

2019 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the Miles Davis sextet's acclaimed album, Kind of Blue (Columbia). While the tributes didn't exactly pour in, New York-based composer / arranger Jon Schapiro took it upon himself not only to revisit that classic session but to re-orchestrate it for a large ensemble (the Schapiro 17) and flesh it out ...


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