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Album Review: Storybook: The Music of Mark Miller from Birdland Big Band

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  Storybook:  The Music of Mark Miller from Birdland Big Band Label Name: Birdland Records Release Date: August 29, 2025 Website: www.marktrombone.com New York-based trombonist, composer and arranger Mark Miller leads Birdland Big Band into a cornucopia of swing, blues, hardcore bop, and modern orchestral jazz with their recording Storybook .  The Birdland Big Band is the house band at the iconic Birdland Jazz Club in New York City.  Their performance is on a professional scale.  Running parallel voices and entering multiple participants interceding the dialogue intermittently with ease and sophistication, never losing the main thread of the discourse.  Culminating into organized mayhem like traffic at the intersection of a heavily congested New York City intersection. This is the image Birdland Big Band incites in their performance of originals and their adventurous interpretations of jazz standards. A fleet of horns, along with piano keys, vibrate bright...
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New Release: It Gets Better from Jeff Rupert

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  New Release:  It Gets Better from Jeff Rupert Release Date: September 6, 2024 Label: Rupe Media Website:  www.facebook.com/JeffRupertSax Saxophonist, composer, and leader Jeff Rupert has enjoyed four and a half decades of performing, producing, creating, and teaching jazz styles from swing to blues, from straight-ahead to smooth, from big band dancehall to post bop fervor.  His 2024 project It Gets Better contains 6 originals by Rupert and 3 jazz standards.  Taking a look at his original "Lana Turner," Rupert illustrates his forte for cool jazz atmospheres as the smooth furls of his sax float above the slow, steady, bopping swells of Peter Washington's bass and Joe Farnsworth's drums, while the paddling motions of Kenny Barron's piano keys sow harmonious formations, foddering the cushion-laden climate.  There is an overall amiable presence throughout the assortment of jazz styles on display, whispering gently in the listener's ear through his iteration o...
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New Release: Mood Ellington from Paul Marinaro

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  Mood Ellington from Paul Marinaro Label:  Origin Records Release Date:  November 21, 2025  Website:  http://paulmarinaro.com Endowed with a clarion vocalese reflective of Michael Feinstein and a daydreamy sonorous liken to Johnny Mathis, singer and vocal stylist Paul Marinaro presents his fifth album Mood Ellington .  Compacted into a setlist of 25 songs written by Duke Ellington in addition to Billy Strayhorn, Marinaro packs vintage swing with a modern perspective for a tribute that revamps a period of nostalgic jazz.  Performing with Marinaro is a 12-piece violin section along with Tom Vaitsas on piano, Mike Allemana on guitar, John Tate on bass, Neil Hemphill on drums, Rich Moore on alto sax, clarinet and flute, John Wojciechowski on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute, Ted Hogarth on baritone sax and bass clarinet, Eric Jacobson on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Raphael Crawford on trombone.  Marinaro shapes vocal nuances and swagger with hi...
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New Release: Beatitude from David Bixler

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  New Release:  Beatitude from David Bixler Label:  Tiger Turn Release Date:  April 26, 2024 Website:  https://www.davidbixler.com Saxophonist, composer, and leader David Bixler approaches jazz as a means to disseminate hope for a better day to come.  His 2024 release Beatitude spreads this message proudly and tacitly through his eight original pieces.  He expresses in the press release, "I speak for myself when I say every time I approach the piano, the bandstand and my colleagues, I do so with the understanding that I am approaching an altar, fellow ministers, and a congregation that needs ministering too."  The prevalent theme throughout the recording is promoting solace in the music and the cozy companionship demonstrated in the instrumentation.  His track "Balm" overflows with a cozy companionship quality, buoyed by the conversational interplay his sax holds with Jon Cowherd's piano keys as Ike Sturm's bass pulls sustain a reflective am...
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New Release: Wes 101 from Kristen Bromley

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  New Release:  Wes 101 from Kristen Bromley Label:  Kristen R. Bromley Music Release Date:  April 18, 2025 Website: www.kristenbromley.com Wes 101 is jazz guitarist-composer Kristen Bromley's fifth installment as a leader and frontwoman. The compilation includes seven originals by Bromley, showcasing her standing as a motivating force in the jazz blues forum.  Her work is a tribute to the legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, applying a modern perspective to his manipulation of octaves. The dynamic quivers in her playing nestles a soft penmanship along her ballad "Cherished Moments," projecting a Latin-imbued aura, ruminating tenderly and reverently, sharing a kindred spirit with Montgomery's timeless nougat "Mistly."   Moving into a swinging constellation of gyrating keys from Melanie Shore's organ, and a steady surge of bopping knolls by David Ian Baker on bass and Matt Coleman on drums, “Swing It for the Maestro” is an adaptation of Montgomery...
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New Release: Wake Up Call from Rick Roe

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  Wake Up Call from Rick Roe Label: Cold Plunge Records Release Date:  December 19, 2025 Websites: https://www.gregghilljazz.com https://www.roejazz.com Pianist, leader and arranger Rick Roe, while in the company of Nate Winn on drums, Robert Hurst on bass, and Marcus Elliot on tenor and soprano saxophones, has cultivated a nouveau straight-ahead jazz style on his newest addition Wake Up Call:  The Music of Greg Hill .  Roe and company make alternations to jazz composer Greg Hill's compositions that set these tracks along a path of spiraling aerials and stimulating improvisations.  The main course of the album is the window brightening hues of "Sunspiration," escalated by the swinging fluctuations throttling the title track, and then rolling into the stargazing harmonies of "Wide River."   The bopping beats of "The Return of Mr. Pea" propel Roe's jutting keys and Elliot's zigzagging tenor into a nouveau stratosphere.  For the dessert, Winn'...
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Album Review: Two Piece from Jonivan Jones

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  Album:  Two Piece Artist:  Jonivan Jones Label:  Buffalo Music/Jonivan Jones Music Release Date:  March 28, 2024 Website:  https://www.jonivanjonesmusic.com Jonivan Jones's offering Two Piece is a rootsy Ozark mountain blues cook-out, roasted in Americana anecdotes and barbed in country folk nostalgia.  The singer-songwriter-guitarist is joined by upright bass player Mike West, whose whistling strokes shroud the tracks in a willowy, outdoorsy ambience.  Mastered by James Plotkin of Plotkinworks, Jones pours his heart and soul into his creation, giving the songs an authenticity reminiscent of the pastoral folkscapes of Woody Guthrie and the musky, rustic palette of John Prine.  Jones's songwriting straddles the line of traditional folk and experimental blues, dipping into the psychedelic zone of prismatic colors resonating in his guitar reverberations dancing across "Drifter's Suit."  The raspy texture of Jones's vocals are kilted in f...
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