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The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra

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97
Album Review

The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra & Jim McNeely: Play Bill Evans

Read "Play Bill Evans" reviewed by Jack Bowers


As Jim McNeely observes in the liner notes, the late Bill Evans’ reputation as a great Jazz pianist overshadowed his remarkable gifts as a composer, an oversight the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra seeks to redress by repositioning seven of Evans’ graceful melodies in a big–band framework (with a medley comprised of bassist Scott LaFaro’s “Gloria’s Step” and Clare Fischer’s elegy to LaFaro, “Theme for Scotty”). Even though Evans’ music is more pensive than explosive, its natural beauty tends to neutralize ...

145
Album Review

The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra: The Governor

Read "The Governor" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Nearly a third of this splendid album by the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, recorded in March 1999 at Copenhagen's JazzHouse, is devoted to “The Governor," conductor Niels Jørgen Steen's enterprising centenary salute to Edward Kennedy Ellington on which ensemble and soloists alike (nine in all) masterfully reanimate the enduring Ellington spirit. The other eleven selections were written by Billy Strayhorn (a brief “Take the 'A' Train"), Juan Tizol ("Perdido") or Ellington, either by himself or with Cootie Williams ("Concerto for ...

146
Album Review

The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra Featuring Leroy Jones: The Power and the Glory: A Salute to Louis Armstrong

Read "The Power and the Glory: A Salute to Louis Armstrong" reviewed by Jack Bowers


We’ve heard a number of recorded tributes to Louis Armstrong during the centenary of that renowned Jazz pioneer’s birth but none more captivating than this one by the superb Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra and guest trumpeter Leroy Jones. Louis is gone but his indomitable spirit lives on in stylists like Jones, born and bred, as was Armstrong, in New Orleans and enraptured by the Crescent City’s musical traditions. But even though he’s an ardent admirer of Satchmo, Jones is no ...

98
Album Review

The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra: The Voice of Silence

Read "The Voice of Silence" reviewed by Jack Bowers


This unconventional album by the DRJO consists of a nine–part suite written by Palle Mikkelborg as “an homage to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art” (which is not in the Louisiana that encircles the mouth of the Mississippi River but in the Danish town of Humlebaek, about 30 km north of Copenhagen). The museum was established by the late Knud Jensen (he passed away last year), to whom the ethereal 10–minute “Prologue” is dedicated. Other movements describe in musical terms ...

152
Album Review

The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra: Impulsive! The Music of Eliane Elias

Read "Impulsive! The Music of Eliane Elias" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The compositions on Impulsive! are by Brazilian–bred Elias, the charts by Kansas City’s Bob Brookmeyer, and they — and the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra — form an impressively cosmopolitan team. Orchestrally speaking, Brookmeyer gets the most out of each of Elias’ half–dozen charming melodies, sketching them in bold and brilliant colors, while the DRJO plays them with its usual unruffled proficiency and flair. If the arrangements sound as though they’d been fashioned with the DRJO in mind, perhaps that’s because ...

120
Album Review

The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra: Nice Work

Read "Nice Work" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There is indeed some “nice work” on this new release by the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, thanks largely to the DRJO’s world–class stature as a working big band and the imposing talents of chief conductor Jim McNeely whose sharp and swinging arrangement of the Gershwin brothers’ “Nice Work If You Can Get It” was Grammy–nominated this year. Also from the Gershwins comes “. . .and Rhythm” (“I Got Rhythm”) which opens with a brief reminder of “Rhapsody in Blue” and ...

106
Album Review

The Danish Radio Big Band (dacapo: A Little Bit of Duke

Read "A Little Bit of Duke" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Centenary. What better opportunity to reconsider European interpretations of Duke Ellington’s music than his 100th birthday. Ellington’s music has woven itself into the fabric of Western Musical Tradition in the same way as Hector Berlioz did. Both men were brilliant orchestrators, arrangers, and finally composers. How appropriate it is for the very fine Danish Radio Big Band (DRBB) to tip its hat to Ellington.

A Little Bit of Duke. The music on this live disc is not the ultra-standard Ellingtonia. ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Play Bill Evans

Stunt Records/Sundance Music
2002

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The Power and the...

Storyville Records
2002

buy

The Governor

Storyville Records
2002

buy

Nice Work

Dacapo Records
2001

buy

Impulsive! The Music...

Stunt Records/Sundance Music
2001

buy

The Voice of Silence

Stunt Records/Sundance Music
2001

buy

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