Tony Kadleck Big Band: Around The Horn

One of the best and most unique things about All About Jazz is that discovering wonderful music is not limited to the narrow window around someone's release date. Whenever you stumble on something especially delicious, you can share your sentiments about it—and even if another reviewer has gotten there first.

The route by which I got turned on to trumpeter Tony Kadleck's big band CD, Around the Horn, two years after its 2014 debut, was a tad more circuitous than usual. Always a Stevie Wonder fan, I heard a crackling-good version of "Don't You Worry Bout a Thing" on WWNO, a New Orleans jazz station. For some reason that day I couldn't access their playlist, but there were actual humans at the station who were kind enough to research the tune and locate it for me.

It was on Kadleck's Around the Horn CD, where it turned out to be just one of ten shimmering beauties, each brought to new life in Kadleck's bold and imaginative arrangements, and all played by an impressive roster of first-call musicians. Other beloved tunes include Stevie's "Creepin,'" Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," and Michel Legrand's "How Do You Keep the Music Playing," where Kadleck's clarion trumpet poses that lover's question with so much tenderness and passion that it's nearly as articulate as the Bergmans' haunting lyric.

Add in the clear, warm recording and the thoughtful, satisfying pacing and you have a real treasure—however it makes its way to you. It wasn't quite as long a journey as around the horn (the pun of the title), but it was well worth the trip.

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