Results for "Rusty Higgins"

Rusty Higgins

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival - Woodchopper's Ball: Part 3-4

By SIMON PILBROW

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival “Woodchoppers' Ball" Four Points by Sheraton at LAX Los Angeles, CA May 23-27, 2018 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Concert 8: The Herdsmen -Bobby Shew meets Larry McKenna Trumpeter Bobby Shew is a well- known ...

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival - Woodchopper's Ball: Part 1-4

By SIMON PILBROW

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival “Woodchoppers' Ball" Four Points by Sheraton at LAX Los Angeles, CA May 23-27, 2018 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 The Los Angeles Jazz Institute (LAJI), under Ken Poston, has continued for some thirty years to ...

The Phil Norman Tentet: Then and Now

By JACK BOWERS

There comes a time, usually during the fifth or sixth rendition of a “franchise" movie (think “Rocky" or “Star Trek"), when the phrase “enough is enough" inevitably springs to mind. While Then and Now, the seventh album by saxophonist Phil Norman's L.A.-based all-star Tentet, lands somewhere this side of overkill, its premise--to update and reintroduce classic ...

Allen Carter Big Band: Time on My Hands

By JACK BOWERS

In 2010, composer / arranger / drummer Allen Carter seemingly appeared from out of nowhere (North Dakota, actually) to record Gifts, his first album as a big-band leader and one of the more impressive anthologies in that or any other year. As 2016 passed its midpoint and moved inexorably toward a final bow, Carter decided the ...

Sal Lozano: Everything's Gonna Be Great

By JACK BOWERS

If you're looking for a superlative one-man saxophone section, better call Sal (Lozano). And if you need some dazzling charts to make that section shine, better phone Tom (Kubis, that is). After spending years as one of Southern California's leading sidemen, Sal Lozano has at last recorded an album under his own name, one on which ...

Time Check: A Paucity of Riches?

By JACK BOWERS

On May 18, Betty and I flew to Los Angeles to attend Time Check: A Buddy Rich Alumni Reunion, a four-day panorama sponsored by the L.A. Jazz Institute and held at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel, about a stone's throw or two from the LAX airport. We arrived early afternoon so we could also be present for ...

Ginger Berglund & Scott Whitfield: Solitary Moon

By JACK BOWERS

The unabridged subtitle of this endlessly charming album is “Ginger Berglund & Scott Whitfield Sing the Johnny Mandel Songbook." For those who were unaware that there is a Johnny Mandel Songbook apart from “Emily," “The Shadow of Your Smile" and “Close Enough for Love," this scintillating summary is a guaranteed eye-(and ear-) opener, lovingly packaged and ...

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

By JACK BOWERS

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 ...

Pointing Fingers... And Naming Names

By JACK BOWERS

As the countdown continues toward the last Big Band Report in June, the time has come to point fingers and name names--in other words, to compile a short list of contemporary jazz musicians who have risen above the norm to help make life more pleasurable for one devoted listener. These are, mind you, personal choices, and ...