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University of Toronto 12TET: Rebirth
by Jack Bowers
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more congenial curtain-raiser than Jason Stillman's animated, inflexibly swinging Contemporary Insanity," which opens Rebirth, the debut album by the University of Toronto's snug and well-upholstered 12TET. That's admittedly a tough act to follow, and while the ensemble gives it the old college try it doesn't always live up to the promise of that bright beginning, a shortcoming that can be ascribed in large measure to charts that, while purposeful and assured, simply aren't as ...
read moreUniversity of Toronto Jazz Ensemble: Reflections
by Jack Bowers
Wherever Gordon Foote goes, you may rest assured that pleasurable music is sure to follow. After twenty-six years at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he led the school's superlative Jazz Ensemble, Foote moved eastward to Toronto a year or so ago to oversee the splendid University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra, which recorded its most recent CD, Reflections (the first under Foote's supervision), in April 2013. To describe the album as impressive would be an understatement. The ...
read moreUniversity of Toronto 10 O'Clock Jazz Orchestra: Rivers
by Jack Bowers
Having noted that four of its nine charts were written by Maria Schneider, I approached the newest album by the University of Toronto's superb 10 O'Clock Jazz Orchestra much as one looks forward to a vaccination--unpleasant, perhaps, but something that has to be done. But after listening to the opening measures of Schneider's Lately, I half expected someone to stop the music and shout April Fool! It's really Neal Hefti (or Sammy Nestico, Rob McConnell or Bob Florence)! Can this, ...
read moreThe University of Toronto 10 O'Clock Jazz Orchestra: Off the Cuff
by Jack Bowers
The second recording by the University of Toronto's well·upholstered 10 O'Clock Jazz Orchestra is an uncommonly bright and burnished two·disc symposium, the first half of which is devoted entirely to the music of composer / arranger / pianist Jim McNeely. When one considers that the university's Jazz Performance Degree was established little more than a decade ago and that there are no more than sixty full·time students in its Jazz Studies program, Off the Cuff represents a truly remarkable achievement. ...
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