A fair outing of modern big band music from a set of players spread across the East Coast, this album captures some level of the classic bop big band sound (it opens with a
Tadd Dameron number, no less), as well as hints of the modern big band, as they stand. The music here tends to be somewhat overwrought, with enough references to the old style that the music can become slightly monotonous after a time. The
Tadd Dameron opener is an excellent composition, but loses a bit of its luster under the mass of instrumentation. As the album progresses, this lightens up a bit. Indeed, the big band is scaled back to a sextet for a spattering of tracks within the course of the album. These sextet pieces are really excellent, giving the players more room (and more bars) to stretch out and show off their abilities. In the larger setting, the songs become somewhat predictable under the weight of their own compositions and the difficulties inherent in keeping a band of this size together suitably well. The experimentation and exploration of some of the newer big bands (
Chris Walden's, for example) is seemingly missing. That said however, the group takes a turn midway through, expanding into more adventurous territory at least temporarily with a
Monk-like composition and a light samba leading into a somewhat more free-form sextet number that gives co-bandleader Vince Norman some ground to make his saxes squeal a bit. The album closes with a trio of pieces built in the mold of the '70s big bands, somewhere between bop and easy listening jazz, with twists and turns thrown into the melodic lines almost too well to maintain the sense of improvisation. That's really somewhat the key to this album -- the playing is superb throughout, but the compositions lack the real feel of jazz. They've got the swing they need, but even the solos feel at least a little manufactured. Pick it up for the technical mastery of the players, but perhaps shoot for
Chris Walden's last couple of albums if you're looking for an example of where big band jazz can go. ~ Adam Greenberg