Home » Search Center » Results: Jim McNeely
Results for "Jim McNeely"
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: A Band in the Vanguard
by George Kanzler
Not only is this the 75th anniversary of the Village Vanguard, this month also marks the 44th anniversary of the Monday night residency of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (VJO), begun in 1966 as the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Those Monday nights are a very significant part of the Vanguard's legacy as THE premier jazz club ...
Copenhagen JazzHouse: The Evolution of a Jazz Club
by Nick Catalano
On a recent visit to Denmark I was able to spend a couple of evenings at the Copenhagen JazzHouse and digest some of the cutting edge ideas of the club's artistic director composer/ bassist Lennart Ginman. Years ago I had initially encountered the Danish jazz scene at Cafe Monmartre and found it thriving as Thad Jones ...
George Robert Jazztet: Remember the Sound (Homage to Michael Brecker)
by George Kanzler
Working with a tentet similar to mid-size bands he's led on his own projects, composer/arranger Jim McNeely has fashioned a musical tribute to the late Michael Brecker that manages to conjure up aspects of the late saxophonist's music and musical personality, without resorting to overt mimicry or pastiche. Led by alto saxophonist George Robert, with faculty ...
Dave Douglas: A Single Sky
by Martin Longley
Here is yet another facet of Dave Douglas, an artist who is constantly seeking fresh discoveries. This album benefits from the full forces of the Frankfurt Radio Big Band (FRB), brashly realizing the composer's large lyricism. Douglas now turns his auteur skills to writing inflated-scale compositions, although his own soloing role is not diminished. His features ...
Dave Douglas: A Single Sky
by Troy Collins
On his first big band recording, award winning trumpeter, composer, bandleader, and Greenleaf Music label founder Dave Douglas is joined by the Frankfurt Radio Bigband, conducted by composer/arranger Jim McNeely, with whom Douglas studied in the mid-1980s. Presenting a previously unheard facet of Douglas' artistry, A Single Sky features new compositions written expressly for big band, ...
Thomas Barber's Janus Bloc: Snow Road
by Troy Collins
In ancient Roman mythology, Janus, the god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings, was often depicted with two heads facing in opposite directions--one looking to the past, the other to the future--making him an appropriate signifier for music that embraces a range of historical traditions. Snow Road is the debut recording of trumpeter and recent Julliard ...
Thelonious Monk: Pianists Riff on Monk
by George Kanzler
This month, over a dozen pianists will participate in a free concert, Thelonious Monk at 92, at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan. Seven of them, and two other pianists with an abiding interest in Monk, answered questions about Monk's music and more specifically, his piano playing, as influence and inspiration. Jazz ...
Jack Cortner Big Band / Peter Hand Big Band / Chicago Jazz Philharmonic
by Jack Bowers
Jack Cortner Big Band Sound Check Jazzed Media 2009 For someone who waited so long before taking his first swings as leader of his own big band, Jack Cortner shows again on Sound Check, the band's second impressive recording in as many years, that he's got game. He's ...
Brett Favre Isn't The Only Comeback Kid
by Jack Bowers
The ink was barely dry on last month's report that trumpeter Rob Parton had decided to break up his superlative Chicago-based JazzTech Big Band after more than twenty years at the helm before Parton was back with a brand new ensemble, one whose purpose, he says, “is to mirror that of the European Radio Orchestras where ...
Large Ensembles: Is There a Place in This Large Music World?
by R.J. DeLuke
The big band in jazz has a long and glorious history. It was a prevalent form in jazz music in the '20s and '30s, comprising a substantial part of America's popular music heard on radio, spun on gramophones and record players, and enjoyed in dance halls. It gave rise to iconic band leaders like Fletcher Henderson, ...
