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Walter Cano
Arturo O'Farrill: Virtual Birdland
by Jack Bowers
Whenever an obstacle presents itself--even one as devastating and disruptive as a global pandemic--it's a sure bet that musicians will find a way around it, a way to keep making music even in the most grievous circumstances. Jazz musicians have been especially creative during the Covid-19 scourge, using social media, the internet and any other means at their disposal to share their music with the world. True, the paychecks aren't as large or as regular as once they were, but ...
read moreUlysses Owens Jr. Big Band: Soul Conversations
by Jack Bowers
Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.'s Big Band comes out swinging on its debut recording, Soul Conversations, thundering through Michael Dease's incendiary arrangement of the Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis flame-thrower, Two Bass Hit." For more such heat, however, the listener must move forward to Track 5, John Coltrane's impulsive Giant Steps," thence to Track 9 for Charles Turner III's earnest homage to Harlem Harlem Harlem," on which he doubles as vocalist. That's not to say that everything in between is ...
read moreJC Hopkins Biggish Band: New York Moment
by Chris M. Slawecki
On New York Moment, pianist JC Hopkins and his twelve-piece Biggish Band tend to a flame that's been burning since prior to World War II, the sound of large dance bands (with and without vocalists) who moved audiences with both sophistication and swing. Hopkins' Moment rotates Vanisha-Arleen Gould, Joy Hanson, Nico Sarbanes (who also plays trumpet), Shawn Whitehorn and Alicyn Yaffee (guitar) as lead vocalists. The opening track leaves you genuinely Beguiled" as vocalists Nico and Joy harmonize ...
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