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A Lousy Day in Harlem
The Ed Palermo Big Band
Label: Sky Cat Records
Released: 2019
Views: 1,015
Tracks
1. Laurie Frink 08:27
2. Affinity 05:14
3. Brasilliance 05:36
4. Sanfona 06:02
5. Like Lee Morgan 02:32
6. The One with the Balloon 07:03
7. Minority 03:38
8. The Cowboy Song 08:07
9. Well You Needn't 03:02
10. Giant Steps 04:04
11. Next Year 07:33
12. Gargoyles 07:47
13. This Won't Take Long 02:21
Personnel
The Ed Palermo Big Band
band / ensemble / orchestraAdditional Personnel / Information
THE CATS & KITTENS OF THE ED PALERMO BIG BAND:
REEDS:
CLIFF LYONS - alto sax, clarinet, soprano sax on “Affinity”
PHIL CHESTER - alto sax, soprano sax, flute, piccolo
BILL STRAUB - tenor sax, clarinet, flute
BEN KONO - tenor sax, flute, oboe
BARBARA CIFELLI - baritone sax, bass clarinet, Eb mutant clarinet
ED PALERMO - alto sax
TRUMPETS:
RONNIE BUTTACAVOLI (lead)
JOHN BAILEY
STEVE JANKOWSKI
TROMBONES:
CHARLEY GORDON (lead)
MIKE BOSCHEN
MATT INGMAN (bass trombone)
DRUMS:
RAY MARCHICA
ELECTRIC BASS:
PAUL ADAMY
PIANO:
BOB QUARANTA
KEYBOARD:
TED KOOSHIAN
ALL ARRANGEMENTS:
ED PALERMO
SOLOISTS
LAURIE FRINK: Phil Chester, soprano sax; Bill Straub, tenor sax
AFFINITY: Cliff Lyons, soprano sax
BRASILLIANCE: Bob Quaranta, piano; John Bailey, trumpet; Bill Straub, clarinet
SANFONA: Phil Chester, soprano sax
LIKE LEE MORGAN: John Bailey, trumpet
THE ONE WITH THE BALLOON: Charley Gordon, trombone; Nicki Denner, tap dancing
MINORITY: Ed Palermo, alto sax
THE COWBOY SONG: Phil Chester, soprano sax
WELL YOU NEEDN’T: Ed Palermo, alto sax; Charley Gordon, trombone; John Bailey, trumpet
GIANT STEPS: Bill Straub and Ben Kono, tenor saxes
NEXT YEAR: Ed Palermo, alto sax
GARGOYLES: Ben Kono, tenor sax; John Bailey, trumpet
THIS WON’T TAKE LONG: Ed Palermo, alto sax
Producers: Ed Palermo and Steve Jankowski
Executive Producer: Ed Palermo
Recorded at Jankland Recording, Wall Township, NJ
Steve Jankowski: Engineer
Mixing and mastering by Steve Jankowski
Art & Design, photography by Hugh Brennan
Album Description
In a radical departure, jazz’s state-of-the-art orchestra – The Ed Palermo Big Band – has recorded a thrilling
program of…jazz! An ingenious arranger, composer and alto saxophonist, Ed Palermo has spent much of the past
three decades earning international renown with a series of albums transmuting fervidly loved rock songs by
Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, and their British brethren into supremely imaginative vehicles for improvisation
with his 18 piece jazz big band. With A Lousy Day in Harlem, he unleashes his talent-laden ensemble on a
gorgeous array of music by Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, Egberto Gismonte, and his own finely wrought originals.
Slated for release on Sky Cat Records, the album captures a master arranger and jazz big band leader at the top
of his game, putting his own unmistakable stamp on canonical compositions. Firmly in the tradition, the project
reveals that Palermo’s nonpareil gift for recasting beloved tunes encompasses jazz too.
“The thing about this record is, I wanted it to be jazzier,” says Palermo. “We play a lot of jazz in my band, but I’ve
been doing Zappa and British Invasion stuff for years and I’ve had these other types of music in my book, jazz
tunes that had been close to my heart for decades. I finally felt ready to record these tunes – tunes I’d composed,
and tunes I’d arranged. It felt like the right time to show the world another side of the band.”
Palermo doesn’t waste a moment in setting the agenda. The album kicks off with “Laurie Frink,” a surging piece
that feels like a theme from a 1970s action film. He rechristened the tune as a tribute to its namesake, a dear
friend who played lead trumpet in the band for years. Revered by her peers as a brass savant who mentored
generations of trumpeters, “she was just a tremendous musician and a musical partner for decades,” Palermo
says. “She used to love this song, so I retitled it after she passed.”
In many ways Lousy Day makes a compelling case for Palermo’s abiding love of luscious melody, like “Affinity,” a
winsome piece featuring Cliff Lyons’ expert soprano sax work. And for sheer unabashed beauty it’s hard to
surpass Egberto Gismonte’s episodic “Sanfona,” a piece that moves through a variety of emotional spaces without
shedding a sense of innocence and discovery. “Brazilians are so much better at creating this kind of emotional
material,” Palermo says.
He uncovers an overlooked gem from Duke Ellington’s vast songbook with “Brasilliance,” a movement from
1968’s Latin American Suite. The piece takes an unexpected detour with the interpolation of Juan Tizol’s
“Caravan,” powered by John Bailey’s bravura trumpet work. Bailey sounds equally formidable swaggering through
Palermo’s brief and torrid “Like Lee Morgan.”
If the album has an emotional centerpiece, it’s Palermo’s “The One With the Balloon,” a playful tune that
combines gentle humor, sweet lyricism, and a strikingly graceful tap dance solo in the middle by Nicki Denner.
Moving from whimsy to ferocity, he pays tribute to his alto sax hero Cannonball Adderley with a fierce
arrangement of Gigi Gryce’s standard “Minority,” which opens with Palermo’s deft orchestration of eight measures
transcribed from Cannon’s famous solo.
The band gets Spherical with an ingenious Thelonious Monk medley that opens as “Well, You Needn’t” but
quickly sprints into “In Walked Bud,” then references “Straight No Chaser,” and drops hints of “Evidence” too if you
listen closely to the rhythm section. It’s an off-kilter tour de force, but not nearly as wacky as his tenor battle
“Giant Steps,” a showcase for saxophonist Bill Straub and Ben Kono by way of the dueling banjos in Deliverance.
The album comes rushing to a sensational close with “Gargoyles,” a brilliant piece by Renee Rosnes and Walt
Weiskopf that Palermo learned from Billy Drummond’s 1993 album The Gift (though it’s better known from
Rosnes’s 2001 album With A Little Help From My Friends). It’s a careening post-bop thrill ride that keys on Kono’s
brawny tenor solo and Bailey’s flashing trumpet. And as a sweet kiss off, Palermo concludes the adventure with
the appropriately brief foray into rhythm changes, “This Won't Take Long,” featuring his fiery alto.
All in all, Palermo’s Lousy Day In Harlem makes for a thrilling musical outing, even if his very big band failed to
show up for the cover art photo shoot. Palermo’s photos were taken on the steps of the same brownstone where
Art Kane captured 57 jazz legends and sundry neighborhood kids for Esquire magazine on that fateful summer
morning in 1958. His kidding reference to the iconic jazz image “A Great Day in Harlem” makes sense given
Palermo’s off-beat, self-deprecating humor and the album’s mission to align The Ed Palermo Big Band within the
esteemed tradition and history of jazz.
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About The Ed Palermo Big Band
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
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