Home » Search Center » Results: Jack Bowers
Results for "Jack Bowers"
Kurt Jarnberg: Down Memory Lane, Vols 3 and 4
by Jack Bowers
For some of us, Memory Lane is much longer and far more crowded than it once was. Be that as it may, any trip there remains a pleasurable experience, more so when the guide is Swedish trombonist / trumpeter Kurt Jarnberg who employs his quartet, quintet, big band and a host of talented guest artists to ...
Dave Pietro: New Road: Iowa Memoirs
by Jack Bowers
In 2011, New York City-based saxophonist Dave Pietro was invited to spend three weeks as artist-in-residence at the University of Iowa. While there, he worked with young musicians in school programs across the state. It proved to be a rewarding commission for the native New Englander who was so enheartened that he chose to recreate the ...
Fat Kid Big Band: New Beginnings
by Jack Bowers
Note to Montreal's Fat Kid Big Band: If you really want to make a favorable first impression on your audience, move the opening track on New Beginnings, “Bustin' My Ass," and replace it with any of the album's five instrumental numbers. Nothing personal, and no disrespect meant to singer Othniel PF, but why would a big ...
Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra: Without A Trace
by Jack Bowers
Grudging good wishes to New Yorkers who are able to see and hear the world-class Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra on a fairly regular basis. Everyone else must make do with the occasional recording (Without a Trace is only the second by the ten-year-old ensemble which made its debut in 2008). That's not nearly enough, of course, ...
John Macleod: The Toronto Sound
by Jack Bowers
Yes, this is Canada's John MacLeod and the Rex Hotel Orchestra. And yes, this is the ensemble's third CD, The Toronto Sound. But close your eyes and listen carefully and it modulates into no less than an earnest albeit clandestine homage to Rob McConnell and the peerless Boss Brass. Is that a good thing? Beyond any ...
Ronny Johansson: Manhattan
by Jack Bowers
Manhattan, Swedish-born pianist Ronny Johansson's thirteenth album as a leader, is being reviewed on a Friday, the thirteenth (a rather odd coincidence but one that in no way impairs its worth). The album also marks Johansson's seventy-fifth birthday. In honor of the occasion he abandoned his usual trio format in favor of a quartet, adding Rolf ...
The Ken Peplowski Big Band: Sunrise
by Jack Bowers
Many contemporary big bands are all about “breaking new ground" and “exploring new pathways." Not this one. Ace clarinetist Ken Peplowski, who has performed and recorded with myriad large ensembles, at home and abroad, but has seldom led one--although he did record one other big-band album, Last Swing of the Century (Concord Jazz, 1999)--simply wants to ...
Bob Washut Dodectet: Journey to Knowhere
by Jack Bowers
Even as experience is often the best teacher, so it is that the teacher often has the most useful experience. Bob Washut, who has been a teacher for roughly four decades, brings that experience and more to bear on Journey to Knowhere, preparing an ambrosial banquet for his twelve-member Dodectet whose main course consists of seven ...
Bill Warfield: For Lew
by Jack Bowers
The “Lew" referred to on Renaissance man Bill Warfield's latest big-band album, For Lew, is the late trumpeter Lew Soloff, whom Warfield remembers in the liner notes as “my mentor, colleague, friend and inspiration." The inspiration arrived when the teen-age Warfield, who had switched from trumpet to piano after losing his front teeth in an auto ...
Mica Bethea: Suite Theory
by Jack Bowers
If nothing else is known about Mica Bethea, it should be clearly understood that he has never been one to brush aside or turn away from a challenge. When Bethea was twenty-one years old and a student / musician at the University of North Florida, a horrendous auto accident left him a quadriplegic. For most people, ...
