Results for "Rob Middleton"

Rob Middleton

Human Qualities

By Jon Schapiro

Label: Summit Records
Released: 2021
Track listing: Count Me Out; Tango; Hmmm; The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face; Human Qualities; Hallelujah; A Bounce in Her Step; House Money.

Schapiro 17: Human Qualities

by Jack Bowers
March 14, 2021

Following its splendid premiere recording, an exploration of Miles Davis' unrivaled album Kind Of Blue (Capitol Records, 1959), composer/arranger Jon Schapiro's 17-member ensemble broadens its horizons on Human Qualities, pairing seven of the maestro's astute and adventurous charts with the Roberta Flack best-seller, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." This time around, Schapiro proves ...

New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

By Jon Schapiro

Label: Summit Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: CD 1 — Boiled Funk; Foiled Bunk; So What; Boiled Funk 2: Dark of Night; Blue in Green. CD 2 — Boiled Funk 3: Worth Your While; All Blues; Boiled Funk 4: Old Feet, New Shoes; Flamenco Sketches; Boiled Funk 5: A Smile; Freddie Freeloader; Boiled Funk / Theme.

Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

by Jerome Wilson
September 7, 2020

Miles Davis' album Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) is the best-selling jazz album of all time and has been highly influential for the last 60 years. Most of its five tracks have become jazz standards and have been interpreted time and again. However it is rare to see the entire album reworked to the extent that ...

Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

by Jack Bowers
April 10, 2020

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 ...

The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Along for the Ride

by Jack Bowers
June 20, 2019

On the third album as leader of his superlative New York-based Jazz Orchestra, trombonist Pete McGuinness proves again that he is one of the more astute and resourceful composer / arrangers on the scene today. From “Put on a Happy Face" through “One for the Maestro," McGuinness' impressive charts are decorous models of warmth and perception. ...

Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra: Without A Trace

by Jack Bowers
May 7, 2018

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, ...

Tommy Igoe and the Birdland Big Band: Eleven

by C. Michael Bailey
March 9, 2012

Like many other corners in that amorphous room called jazz, big band jazz has grown more abstract and experimental since its heyday in the 1930s. This process is necessary for the creative evolution of the art, but often produces music that is as unlistenable as it is creative--or brilliant. Abstract growth may be considered horizontal evolution, ...

Tommy Igoe and the Birdland Big Band: Eleven

by Edward Blanco
March 7, 2012

Led by East Coast drumming icon Tommy Igoe, the Birdland Big Band delivers powerful performances each Friday night at New York's renowned Birdland jazz club. Eleven captures Igoe and some of the city's finest jazz musicians playing in the same hard-driving fashion on eleven signature arrangements of funk, Latin and contemporary jazz. This high-octane orchestra is ...