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Dan Block
Andy Farber and His Orchestra: Early Blue Evening
by Jack Bowers
Saxophonist Andy Farber's New York-based orchestra came together and cut its teeth as the onstage band for three hundred performances of After Midnight, a Broadway revue that paid tribute to Jazz Age nightclub luminaries from Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie to Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. As one might presume from the orchestra's provenance, echoes of Ellington and Basie can readily be discerned on its first recording since After Midnight closed in 2014--but Farber, who wrote ...
read moreDan Block: From His World To Mine: Dan Block Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington
by Woodrow Wilkins
Stevie Wonder referred to him as the king of all"--him, being Duke Ellington, a master bandleader from the golden era of big band jazz. Dan Block pays tribute to Sir Duke with From His World to Mine. Block is a saxophonist, clarinetist and composer who has associated with such artists as Clark Terry, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Feinstein and Rosemary Clooney. He has appeared numerous times on television's A Prairie Home Companion and has been heard on commercials and ...
read moreDan Block: From His World To Mine: Dan Block Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington
by Edward Blanco
Bandleader and accomplished reed man Dan Block is an exponent of traditional and swing jazz, and pays homage to the music of Duke Ellington with From His World To Mine: Dan Block Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington. The repertoire's avoidance of the usual Ellington standards and classics makes this a unique project unlike other tributes to the master--there is no Satin Doll," Sophisticated Lady," Caravan," or Take the A Train"; instead, lesser-known but equally impressive tunes from the '30s ...
read moreDan Block: From His World To Mine: Dan Block Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington
by Bruce Lindsay
Dan Block is an exceptionally talented reed player, a stylish arranger and composer, a skilful bandleader and a valued sideman. He's worked with Michael Feinstein, Rosemary Clooney and Clark Terry, among others, and has also performed for Broadway shows and Hollywood movies, but he has never achieved the widespread recognition his talent deserves. From His World To Mine: Dan Block Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington should change that. It is, quite simply, gorgeous. Block has drawn ...
read moreDan Block: Solid Sideman
by Ken Dryden
The Andrew Scott Quartet Meets Jon-Erik Kellso & Dan Block Nostalgia Sackville 2009 Marty Grosz Hot Winds, The Classic Sessions Arbors 2009
Dan Block has worked in a variety of musical settings during his long career and has been a sideman in bands led by Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan and Toshiko Akiyoshi, currently working with Jerry Dodgion's Joy of Sax and the Sultans of ...
read moreDan Block Plays the Music of Duke Ellington
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Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
Reedman Dan Block is cool with me. His Plays the Music of Duke Ellington, From His World to Mine (Miles High 8612) is cool too. It's not just another Duke tribute. For this one Dan obviously spent some time with the song list. It's not the well-worn blockbusters on display here, but instead some of the relatively under-recorded gems like the WWII era Kissing Bug," the New Orleans Suite movement Second Line," the Bigard-not-canard Are You Sticking?" (he wasn't) and ...
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Dan Block / Duke Ellington at Chautauqua 2010
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Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
The multi-talented reed wizard Dan Block thinks as deeply as he plays. Dan's evocation of the musical world of Duke Ellington (and Billy Strayhorn) is more than a trip through familiar Ellingtonia; rather, Dan seeks to inhabit that singular world and at the same time make it his own (as he's done brilliantly on his new CD, FROM HIS WORLD TO MINE). Obviously, his reverence for Ellington's music comes through from the first note, but he doesn't attempt to recreate ...
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Dan Block's Vivid Imaginations
Source:
Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
Dan Block is a peerless reed player, arranger, composer, bandleader. A new CD captures his many imaginations whole. The picture (by Dan's daughter Emma) adorns the cover of his Ellington tribute, FROM HIS WORLD TO MINE. Tributes to Ellington, hoever well-intentioned, have often become self-limiting, even formulaic. Some musicians try to duplicate the sound of famous recordings; others rely upon Duke's hit songs; others nod to an Ellington line for a chorus and then go off on their own. Dan ...
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From: Block PartyBy Dan Block