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Pureum Jin: The Real Blue
by Jack Bowers
Although alto saxophonist Pureum Jin would no doubt shrug her shoulders and ask what's the big deal," the fact remains that she is a South Korean woman playing American jazz and doing so in a way that affirms conclusively that the country's inbred art form is not only universal but gender-neutral. On her debut album, the ...
Jim Cutler Jazz Orchestra: The Wolf Awakens
by Jack Bowers
The Wolf Awakens, Seattle-based saxophonist Jim Cutler's third album as leader of his Jazz Orchestra, consists entirely of original compositions including four of his own, half a dozen by trumpeter Daniel Barry and one ("Haze Gray") by Matso Limtiaco. Before appraising them, a word about the ensemble, and that word is exemplary. These are without a ...
Erik Skov: Liminality
by Jack Bowers
Liminality is defined as occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold." Guitarist Erik Skov had a good idea: infuse his debut album with a certain amount of liminality (ambivalence) in the form of eight long-form compositions designed to lend his able sextet weighty meat on which to chew.
Vosbein Magee Big Band: Come and Get It!
by Jack Bowers
One conclusive way to appraise an albumbig-band or otherwiseis by the emotional response it arouses in the listener. Come and Get it!, the debut recording by the Virginia-based Vosbein Magee Big Band, gives rise to warmth and happiness for a number of reasons, not least of which are an unbroken series of bright and impressive themes, ...
Carrera Quinta: Traslaciones
by Jack Bowers
As one would anticipate from the group's name--and the album's song selection--the seven-member Carrera Quinta (pared down from big-band size) plays music from South America, more specifically the Andes region of Colombia, interlaced with mainstream American jazz. The Latin Grammy-nominated ensemble's third album, Traslaciones, comprises seven songs showcasing traditional Colombian styles such as pasillo, bambuco and ...
Espoo Big Band: Espoo Suite
by Jack Bowers
Almost forty years after its inception in 1980, Finland's world-class Espoo Big Band and composer / arranger Marzi Nyman have recorded an often brash and always impressive salute to their home base, the appropriately named Espoo Suite. This is my attempt to describe [the city]," Nyman writes, through free-associative composing." The word free" aptly expresses Nyman's ...
Eyal Vilner Big Band: Swing Out!
by Jack Bowers
Eyal Vilner's fourth album as leader of his impressive New York-based big band is a throwback to the kind of concert dates audiences no doubt derived great pleasure from during the storied Big-Band Era well over half a century ago when groups not far removed from this one in spirit traveled cross-country by bus, car or ...
Rich Willey's Boptism Big Band: Down & Dirty
by Jack Bowers
What's in a name? While that maxim remains a matter for debate, don't let this particular name mislead you. In the parlance of trumpeter Rich Willey's Los Angeles-based Boptism Big Band, Down & Dirty translates into well-scrubbed & swinging. There's really no better way to describe the performance of eleven of Willey's wide-ranging compositions and one ...
George Cables: I'm All Smiles
by Jack Bowers
George Cables, whose elegant piano has graced the jazz scene in New York City and elsewhere for more than five decades, has every reason to be All Smiles; at age seventy-four he is back at the keyboard, as sharp and inspired as ever, following surgery for ulcers that removed one leg above the knee. To mark ...
Richie Beirach-Gregor Huebner Duo and the WDR Big Band: Crossing Borders
by Jack Bowers
The borders" that are earmarked to be crossed in this new album by pianist Richie Bierach, violinist Gregor Huebner and Germany's superb WDR Big Band are both geographic and musical. The collaborative effort is intended, on the one hand, to bridge the gap between people of various ethnicities and backgrounds and help bring them together, and, ...


