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Mike Barone
Mike Barone Big Band: Brazil
by Jack Bowers
Brazil doesn't signify that the venerable California-based composer / arranger Mike Barone has gone Latin; it simply means that Brazil" is the opening number and the name Barone chose for the latest in his long-running series of remarkable big-band albums. No matter, as a Barone recording by any other name would be every inch as inspired and exciting, thanks in large measure to his unerring control of the vehicle, not to mention his invariably radiant and resourceful charts.
read moreMike Barone Big Band: La Fiesta
by Jack Bowers
Mike Barone has been writing outstanding big-band arrangements for more than half a century. After listening to La Fiesta, Barone's ninth album as leader of the Los Angeles-based Mike Barone Big Band (counting Live at Donte's, recorded back in 1968), the logical question arises: does Barone ever run short of resourceful ideas? To which the obvious answer is, not yet. Where else, for example, but on a Barone album could sparkling new arrangements of such moss-covered Tin Pan Alley heirlooms ...
read moreMike Barone Big Band: Flight Of The Bumblebee
by Paul J. Youngman
Big band leader, composer, arranger and trombonist Mike Barone notes, on the jacket of Flight Of The Bumblebee, that Rimsky-Korsakov is turning over in his grave as we speak, or maybe he isn't." One thing is for sure, the energy level of this band is enough to raise the dead. The band is flying high on every tune of this live big band offering.The majority of Flight Of The Bumblebee's twelve songs are Barone originals, with the exception ...
read moreMike Barone Big Band: Flight of the Bumblebee
by Robert J. Robbins
For a quarter-century, Mike Barone provided arrangements for Doc Severinsen's NBC-TV <em>Tonight Show</em> Band, but these were seldom heard by anyone except the studio audiences for the actual telecasts (although excerpts were audible to viewers as intros and exits from commercial breaks). Since the band's dissolution more than fifteen years ago, however, Barone has been recording many of these charts with his own Los Angeles-based ensemble, and Flight of the Bumblebee is just the latest in this string of CDs ...
read moreMike Barone Big Band: By Request
by Jack Bowers
As there is scarcely a clue anywhere on By Request as to who may have asked for these songs, it's fun to presume (whether true or not) that the album's title denotes bandleader Mike Barone's tongue-in-cheek response to those bemused inebriates who, legend has it, sometimes stagger up to bandstands shouting, Play 'Melancholy Baby'! Indeed, My Melancholy Baby is the opening number, and the next time some besotted bystander pleads for its resurrection, I hope the maestro is savvy enough ...
read moreMike Barone Big Band: Metropole
by Jack Bowers
In 1968, composer/arranger/trombonist Mike Barone recorded a hair-raising big-band album, Live at Donte's, then paused for 37 years before producing its spectacular sequel, Live 2005! Now, hard on the heels of that admirable endeavor, comes another masterwork from Barone, Metropole, recorded live last March at LA Valley College in Valley Glen, California.
To be fair, Barone spent nearly 35 of the years between those two albums writing for Doc Severinsen's exemplary Tonight Show band when Johnny Carson hosted the nightly ...
read moreThe Mike Barone Big Band: Live 2005!
by Jack Bowers
Six years ago the CD reissue of Mike Barone's album Live at Donte's 1968 was number two on my annual list of the top ten jazz recordings. To say I was looking forward to Mike's next album would be an understatement. Here it is, only 37 years later (!), and I am delighted to report that time has neither impeded Barone's prolific creativity nor lessened his propensity to swing. In other words, Live 2005! is almost worth the 37-year wait. ...
read moreInterview: Mike Barone
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
I last posted about trombonist, composer and arranger Mike Barone at the start of November. As you may recall, Mike had just released Live at Los Angeles City College, 1967, a previously unissued live recording of his big band, and the arrangements and band knocked me out. So I reached out to Mike for an e-interview to find out more about him and his passion for jazz and big bands. Mike is a self-made arranger, which seems hard to believe ...
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Mike Barone: Live in Los Angeles in 1967
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Trombonist Mike Barone is a composer, arranger and leader of smashing big bands. As a sideman, he recorded on albums that include Supersax Plays Bird (1973), Oliver Nelson's Sound Pieces (1966) on Impulse, Johnny Hartman's Unforgettable Songs (1966) and I Love Everybody (1967), and Shelly Manne's My Fair Lady with the Un-original Cast (1964). On the side, Mike arranged and led touring big bands that knocked out audiences. His band was a well-kept secret, especially in Los Angeles. The first ...
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Mike Barone: Hollywood, 1968-'69
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Based on the flood of emails I received this week, readers seem to get a kick out of my big band posts—particularly when I write about superb recordings that they may have missed. Today I'm going to tell you about two albums led by Mike Barone recorded in late 1968 and early 1969 that are out of this world. First, a bit of bio from Barone's site: In 1959, I attended Valley College in Van Nuys, California and left school ...
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CD: Mike Barone
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Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Mike Barone, Live 2005! Redux (Rhubarb). Barone is one of the most accomplished big band arrangers never to become famous. For this reissue, he remixed to improve the sound, pruned overlong solos and added a track. Why Grand Central" hit the editing room floor the first time around is a mystery. Ernie Watts and Vince Trombetta share the tenor sax glory in Barone's pungent treatment of the John Coltrane classic. Alto saxophonist Kim Richmond, trumpeter Steve Huffsteter and Barone the ...
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