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Russ Phillips
Metropolitan Jazz Octet: The Bowie Project
by Paul Reynolds
A tribute to a pop artist by jazz musicians--as with the new David Bowie album by Chicago's Metropolitan Jazz Octet--has to tread a careful line. It obviously won't--can't--be a rote reproduction of the originals, a flaw that sinks many pop-to-pop tributes. Yet it needs to translate the songs into jazz--its harmonic sophistication, especially--in a way that retains the essence of the artist being celebrated. The MJO effort deftly rises to that challenge. This 11-song project should intrigue Bowieists ...
read moreMetropolitan Jazz Octet featuring Paul Marinaro: The Bowie Project
by Neil Tesser
In the words of David Bowie: “Changes." The Metropolitan Jazz Octet's two previous albums teem with unadulterated jazz. Paul Marinaro is a hard-swinging, expressive baritone steeped in the Great American Songbook and the jazz tradition. So what in the galaxy are they doing with the music of pop legend--and onetime glam rocker, dancehall king, visual visionary, music man of multiple personae, and cultural icon--David Bowie? Historians might note that Bowie started playing jazz saxophone in his ...
read moreJoshua Jern Jazz Orchestra: Lockdown
by Jack Bowers
After taking a pleasant and romantic Midnight Stroll in 2019, trumpeter/composer Joshua Jern's Chicago-based Jazz Orchestra (like almost everyone else) began a coronavirus-decreed Lockdown but has emerged two years later from that self-imposed hiatus swinging harder and more often than ever. As before, most compositions and all arrangements are by Jern; and as before, the orchestra performs them with ardor and panache. This time around, however, there is a formidable new “weapon" on two tracks ("A Stretch ...
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Slow Burn
From: The Bowie ProjectBy Russ Phillips
