Results for "Matt Harris"

Matt Harris

The Rodger Fox Big Band: Plays New Zealand

by Jack Bowers
September 21, 2016

Although trombonist Rodger Fox has somehow managed to keep New Zealand's finest big band alive and swinging for more than four decades, the band has never devoted an entire album to music written and arranged by New Zealanders--until now. That's not to say that Fox and the band have ignored music from their home country. Over ...

New Zealand School of Music Big Band: Too Cool

by Jack Bowers
August 28, 2015

While the latest CD by the splendid New Zealand School of Music Big Band may not be Too Cool, it's definitely chilly enough to demand that the average listener wear earmuffs while sampling its frigid yet at the same time fiery bill of fare. Blues got you down? A few bars of the orchestra's sunny curtain-raiser, ...

Benny Bailey / Nashville Big Band: A Bird in the Hand

by Jack Bowers
November 23, 2014

To accentuate the positive: A Bird in the Hand is Georgia-based drummer Ben Bailey's debut album as a big-band leader, and a splendid one it is, thanks to Bailey's ample talents and those of the Nashville Big Band. The recording arose from a chance meeting in 2011 when another well-known timekeeper, Duffy Jackson, traveled to from ...

Rodger Fox Wellington Jazz Orchestra: The Capitol Sessions

by Jack Bowers
September 7, 2013

In July 2012, trombonist Rodger Fox brought his Wellington Jazz Orchestra all the way from New Zealand to Los Angeles to record at the famed Capitol Studios, thus confirming Fox's confidence in the ensemble--one doesn't undertake a trip like that accompanied by musicians whose talents are less than exemplary--while producing an album that is superlative from ...

Take Five With Joseph David Howell

by Joseph David Howell
June 15, 2013

Meet Joseph David Howell: Dr. Joseph D. Howell has gone from being a mostly self-taught musician from a poor small-town family to earning a Doctor of Musical Arts from a prestigious conservatory. Today he professionally performs, composes, and teaches music of many styles and instruments while maintaining an artistic focus on jazz clarinet and ...

Swingin' on a Riff . . . Hangin' by a Thread?

by Jack Bowers
June 14, 2013

Betty and I returned to Albuquerque on Memorial Day after attending Swingin' on a Riff, the latest in a series of marvelous semi-annual events presented by Ken Poston and the Los Angeles Jazz Institute for more than twenty years at venues in and around L.A. This one was held May 23-26 at the Los Angeles Marriott ...

"Modern Sounds," or: Running a Marathon in Full Body Armor

by Jack Bowers
November 8, 2011

From October 19-25 Betty and I were at the Los Angeles Marriott Airport Hotel to attend Modern Sounds, the L.A. Jazz Institute's four-day salute to West Coast jazz, followed by a day-long tribute to Stan Kenton on the hundredth anniversary of the legendary bandleader's birth. We arrived a day early to be primed and ready for ...