Album Review: Royalty from Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra

 

Album:  Royalty
Artist:  Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra
Label:  T2 Music
Release Date:  August 7, 2026
Artist Website: https://www.springfieldsym.org/ssjo
Label Website: https://t2-music.com/ 

Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra (SSJO) is a performing and recording big band based in Springfield, Ohio and established in 2019.   Founded by Springfield native Todd Stoll, a trumpeter, educator, and Vice President of Education at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, SSJO attracts musicians from across Ohio and neighboring states.  The bond that holds them is a shared commitment to uphold traditional big band idioms and its stylistic language.   Its members crossover three generations that include professional musicians, educators, and emerging artists whose diverse backgrounds contribute vastly to the collaborations on their new release Royalty.

Multiple motifs are layered and crisscrossed along Duke Ellington's tune "Second Line," resembling the pedestrian traffic moving through Grand Central Station in Manhattan as the saxophone section crosses paths with the keys, clarinet, trombones, and trumpet while the steady rumble of the bass and drums hold the rustling activity together.   "Sepia Panorama," another Ellington classic, slows the pace to a comfortable stride, opening the floor to one solo after another, shaping individual expressions and flexing a freedom of movement.

"No Moon at All" partners the bluesy, bourbon-toned timbres of Kurt Elling's vocals and the fingersnapping beats of drummer Jeff Hamilton into a song long associated with Joe Williams and the Count Basie Orchestra.   Moving into the slow burner of Billy Strayhorn’s "My Little Brown Book," whose torchlight shimmer produces a warming effect on the listener, the program leaps into the snappy beats of Ellington’s "Chinoiserie" with horns thrusting and George Delancey's bass cauterizing the spaces between the upper register voices.

The glistening intonation of Ekep Nkwelle's vocals reverberates an elegance in "You Turned the Tables on Me" that is reminiscent of the Golden Age of Jazz.  Meanwhile, Elling returns in "Every Day I Have the Blues" alongside Hamilton on drums and Edwin Bayard on tenor saxophone, infusing a fun, boogie woogie jazz quake into the collection.  The recording softens to a romantic glow through Ellington's "Banquet Scene" then propels into the bubbling pulse of Frank Foster's "Who Me."

Multigenerational, SSJO's makeup reflects a vibrant collaboration of seasoned artists with musicians exploring their talent and forming their own identity.  Sharing a stylistic language and fondness for big band jazz, SSJO do much more than reproduce jazz standards. They tell the stories in their own voices and converse from a place rooted in instinct.

Musicians:
Todd Stoll - director

REEDS
Mark Donavan — alto saxophone
Chris Andrews — alto saxophone
Hal Melia — tenor saxophone, clarinet
Edwin Bayard — tenor saxophone
Lauren Elliott Burgess — baritone saxophone

TRUMPETS
Dr. Scott Belck — lead trumpet
Pharez Whitted — trumpet
Timothy Blackmon Jr. — trumpet
Miles Smith — trumpet
Dr. Larry Griffin — trumpet
Todd Stoll — trumpet

TROMBONES
Jessica Sneeringer — trombone
Lexi Hamner — trombone, tambourine
Dr. Kie Watkins — trombone

RHYTHM SECTION
Christopher Brown — piano
Joel Wenhardt — piano
Kevin Turner — guitar
George Delancey — bass
Maria Marmarou — drums

SPECIAL GUESTS
Jeff Hamilton — drums
Kurt Elling — vocals
Ekep Nkwelle — vocals