jazz2love

  New Release:  Sea Spell from Jeff Rupert Quartet Release Date:  June 26, 2026 Label:  Rupe Media Website:    https://www.facebook.com/JeffRupertSax/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxg1Yv6cuyD5f8AaZdfvSlALbKqXInpKm Smooth jazz tenor saxophonist Jeff Rupert leads his quartet on a blissful voyage along his 2026 installment Sea Spell from Rupe Media.  Joining him are Richard Drexler on piano, Ben Kramer on bass, and Marty Morell on drums.  The sumptuous raptures of his sax elevate the senses in tracks like "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" and "A Breeze Through the Keys," inducing waves of calm in numbers like "Blue Steel" and the title track.  The quartet shines on the Latin swing shimmies of "Mambo Inn," and shifts to a ballroom waltz through "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," illuminating a romantic mood. The swinging pulse of "Orca-Stration" has an undercurrent of jumping blues beats, and softens to a caressing bree...

  New Release:  Girl Talk from Jennifer Madsen Label: SingBaby Productions, LLC Release Date: June 26, 2026 Website:  https://www.jennifermadsen.com A sleek and beguiling crooner, Jennifer Madsen radiates a lively persona on her latest project Girl Talk .   Sowing big band zest with the opulence of swing, Madsen is a galvanizing storyteller, illustrating an intimacy with her audience that is entrancing.  The classic orchestration honors jazz tradition while tweaking the tunes with Madsen's own personalized touch.  Her rendition of Cy Coleman's sultry number "You Turn Me On, Baby" enlivens the romantic ambience while her nuanced vocals throb with anticipation, promising an enchanting interlude along "You and the Night and the Music," anchored by a slow burning mambo rhythm.  "Misty" accentuates her smooth, crooning vocalese, highlighting the emotional depth of the lyrics as she purrs wistfully, "Look at me / I'm as helpless as a kitten up a...

    New Release:  Uncharted Realms from Sean Imboden Large Ensemble Label:  Self-Released Release Date:  May 1, 2026 Website:  https://www.seanimboden.com/ Indianapolis-based saxophonist, composer and leader Sean Imboden returns with his 17-piece big band for his second recording with his orchestra entitled Uncharted Realms .  Their program reimagines traditional big band instrumentation with contemporary perspectives, multi-faceted improvisations, dynamic interplay, and harmonious phrasing.   Opening with "Flowing Currents," the arrangement moves steadily, seaming bulging horns that fluctuate from silky gliding to refined twirling, billowing and flaring.  The recording cruises into a melodic phrasing binding "When You Look Beyond," layering a marching cadence with blazing horns and piercing guitar patterns that transition into the serpentine curves of "Balcony," stringing tangoesque musings and a comfy rhythmic beat.  The album clo...

    New Release:  Shifty Paradigms from Dave Slonaker Label:  Origin Records Release Date:  February 20, 2026 Website:  https://daveslonaker.com   Bandleader, arranger and composer Dave Slonaker presents his third recording, Shifty Paradigms , expanding on his perception of big band arrangements remaining true to tradition while exploring uncharted terrain.  He composed seven of the eight arrangements on the album, highlighting his extensive influences in the field of swing and writing for large jazz ensembles.  He opens the album with “Dash Cam,” structuring the composition to mirror the diverse flow among the instruments, moving between peaceful and bustling.  On the 1925 standard “Bye Bye Blues,” written by Fred Hamm, Dave Bennett, Bert Lown, and Chauncey Gray, Slonaker weaves a jazz waltz for baritone saxophonist, Adam Schroeder, traveling into a straight-ahead up-tempo section for Ron Stout on trumpet.  The title track is a che...

  New Release: Bite Your Tongue from Interplay Jazz Orchestra Label:  Bigtime Records Release Date:  February 26, 2026 Website: https://www.facebook.com/InterplayJazzOrchestra IG: https://www.instagram.com/interplayjazzorchestra The youthfulness in Interplay Jazz Orchestra's performance penetrates the listener from the get-go.  The orchestra's present lineup sees their sophomore offering Bite Your Tongue out of the gate in 2026.  An assortment of covers and originals, the compositions are abound with bopping harmonies, swinging horns, jangly keys, and romping beats.  Layers of trombones, saxophones, and trumpets produce a party atmosphere that keeps the music bustling through numbers like "The Congregation," penned by Johnny Griffin and "Go Figure," written by the band's baritone saxophonist Chris Scarnato.  The bluesy cool jazz glaze of "My Foolish Heart," composed by Victor Young, is a wondrous serenade sprinkled in sparkling horns, coasting...

  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...

  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...

  6th Avenue from Mike Thompson Label:  Hexproof Records Release Date: May 16, 2025 Website:  https://www.mjthompsonmusic.com 6th Avenue , the debut album from Mike Thompson is a contemporary big band collection of six Great American Songbook standards and four original compositions.  Thompson is a student of vibraphone, marimba, concert percussion, jazz composition, and contemporary writing.  He has teamed up with songwriter Sam Nickson for this debut, who wrote string arrangements and co-produced the offering.  Leading a 17-piece ensemble (five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones and a four-piece rhythm section) comprising mostly of veteran players from the local Boston big band scene, Thompson displays traditional big band pageantry with billowing flourishes reminiscent of Glenn Miller Orchestra and elegant sophistication akin to the Guy Lombardo Big Band.   Special guest vocalist Charlize Vermaak performs an impassioned rendering of Cole...

  So Many Memories from Loren Schoenberg and his Jazz Orchestra Label:  Turtle Bay Records Release Date: November 7, 2025 Website:  https://www.lorenschoenbergjazz.com Recalling the Big Band era of the later half of the 1930's, bandleader-tenor saxophonist-pianist Loren Schoenberg and his 15-piece Jazz Orchestra recapture the melodic luster, harmonic elegance, and radiant opulence of speakeasy, Post-World War I, Post-Prohibition Age, Café Society jazz on their compilation So Many Memories.   Having served for 40 years overseeing the Benny Goodman Archives at Yale University and a longtime Juilliard jazz history professor, Schoenberg mints a selection of nostalgic tunes from yesteryear, encouraging listeners to delve into America's memory bank.  The 16-track collection features previously unheard arrangements penned from 1936-39 by swing era composer/arranger Eddie Sauter, and created for bandleader and early jazz vibraphonist Red Norvo and his wife, singer Mildr...

  New Release:  Let's Fall in Love from Judith Whitmore Label:  Self-Released Release Date:  April 25, 2025 Website:  https://www.judywhitmore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/JudithWhitmoreWriterSinger/ @JudithWhitmore (IG/Twitter) Vocalist Judy Whitmore has honed a reputation as a prolific interpreter of songs from the Great American Songbook.  Her latest endeavor, Let's Fall In Love , has her teamed up with producer Chris Walden.  The compilation of songs featured on the recording, Whitmore's fifth solo effort, take audiences back to the Golden Age of big band music, fashioned with contemporary sensibilities where Eydie Gormé meets Brenda Earle Stokes.  Backed up by a 22-member string section, Whitmore is also accompanied by Josh Nelson on piano, Andrew Synowiec on guitar, Edwin Livingston on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, Wade Culbreath on vibraphone, Hendrik Meurkens on harmonica, Laura Brenes on French horn, and Gayle Levant on harp, as well as ...

Album:  Across the Field Artist:  Visions Jazz Ensemble Label:  Patois Records Website:  www.visionsjazzensemble.com Led by trumpeter Sam Butler and tenor saxophonist Garrett Fasig, the Visions Jazz Ensemble embarked on an ambitious task to turn a collection of college fight songs into modern jazz tunes on the ensemble's 2024 release Across the Field.  Produced by Brent Wallarab, Wayne Wallace, and Greg Reynolds, Butler and Fasig corralled a group of graduate music students from Indiana University, the duo's alma mater, and formed the ensemble, embarking on a quest to celebrate and revitalize jazz music's roots anchored in college anthems. Many of the songs chosen for the recording were written at least 100 years ago, according to the press release, and many are based on marches that influenced early New Orleans street music.  Butler and Fasig chose songs they connected with, could tweak with modern jazz treatments, providing fresh takes on each tune. Start...

Album:  The DIVA Jazz Orchestra "30" Artist:  The DIVA Jazz Orchestra Label:  DIVA Jazz Website:  www.divajazz.com Celebrating their 30th year of swinging around the world, The DIVA Jazz Orchestra earmark the occasion with their 2023 outing The DIVA Jazz Orchestra "30," recorded live at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club in New York City.  Featuring selections from the band's music library over the years, the recording elevates the body and calls for audiences to experience pure joy. The DIVA Jazz Orchestra is described in their press release as "an ensemble of fifteen versatile, multi-generational musicians who expertly balance enthusiastic energy with sophisticated subtlety, virtuosity, and imagination." Entwining elements of swing, torchlight blues, big band, and straight-ahead jazz, The DIVA Jazz Orchestra knows how to keep their audience dancing in the aisles.  "Every Day I Have The Blues," a persevering hit for Pinetop Sparks and Me...

Album:  Islands Artist:  Dan Bonsanti and 14 Jazz Orchestra Label:  Self-Released Website:  https://www.14jazzorchestra.com/new-release---islands.html Islands , the 2023 release from composer and arranger Dan Bonsanti and his band, the 14 Jazz Orchestra, is a collection of swinging, big band jazz arrangements with 11 straight-ahead jazz tunes that merge big band bubbles with adult contemporary easiness, nuanced in jazz-imbued elegance.  Textured in jaunty keys liaised with smooth horns and cruising rhythmic beats, the recording fills the listener with pleasurable sensations that last from start to finish. A feel good recording,  Bonsanti and his orchestra attain a state of enjoyment achieved by the likes of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and the Guy Lombardo Big Band.  The warm aesthetics emanating from the horns along "Part of Me" bathe the listener in cozy atmospherics, then traverse into a bossa nova shimmy across "Carmencita," written by Mike Levine, B...

Album:  Celebration Artist:  Josh Levinson Big Band Label:  Wise Cat Records Website:  https://www.joshlevinsonseptet.com/news Trumpeter-composer Josh Levinson releases his fifth recording, appropriately named Celebration .  A multi-layered blending of big band, swing, hard bop, blues, hot jazz, and meringue, the tunes are deeply rooted in jazz traditions with a contemporary flare.  A veritable crowd pleaser, Levinson presents a dozen of his original works, entwining aesthetically pleasing motifs and fiery licks, parlayed into a harmonious whirlwind that keeps the audience's mood uplifted. At the core of the compositions are the horns, performed by Josh Levinson on trumpet, Mike Troy, Itay Goldberg, Greg Lapine, Matt Knoegel, and Bryan Cowan on saxophones, Roger Garcia, Mark McGowan, and Ben Seacrist on additional trumpets, Tim Shneier, Matt McDonald, Glenn Mills, and John Alexander on trombones .  The collective produces tiers of elevating spirals ac...

Album:  Blues To Be There, A Salute To Duke Ellington Artist:  Planet D Nonet Label:  Eastlawn Records Website:  rjspangler.com/pd9.php Paying homage to the works of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, the Planet D Nonet focuses on the works of these artists in their later years of the 1950's on the Nonet's recording Blues To Be There, A Salute To Duke Ellington .  Led by percussionist RJ Spangler and trumpet player James O'Donnell, the Nonet hones their fluency in swing, hard bop, and blues, with each musician "finding themselves" in Ellington's scores, as Spangler paraphrases in a press release. The Nonet's alterations on the original arrangements show a perceptive slant in their interpretations, spotlighting the elegant nuances of each track.  The squiggly furls of James O'Donnell's trumpet are verbose and voluminous, ruminating smoothly along "Blues To Be There" while tindered by the jaunty toots of clarinet player Christopher Tabaczy...

Album:  Red Beats Artist:  Steve Fidyk and the Live Wire Broad Band Label:  Blue Canteen Music Website:  www.bluecanteenmusic.com and www.jazzprofiles.blogspot.com Applying the standard of five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets, and four rhythm players augmented by guitar and organ to the instrumentation featured on Steve Fidyk and the Live Wire Broad Band's latest endeavor Red Beats , the recording bears a burst of creative thinking that expands on the syntex of big band constructs.  Produced by Fidyk, the compilation consists of 9 original compositions by Fidyk as well, arranged for big band by 6 different arrangers from the DC and Philly region, namely the band's bassist Regan Brough, saxophonist Joseph Henson, trumpet player Andrew Carson, guitarist Michael Kramer, saxophonist Mark Allen, and saxophonist Jack Saint Clair. Well-versed in holding dynamic conversations spurred on by rhythm changes, chirpy interfacing and counter statements, the musician...

Album:  My America 2:  Destinations Artist:  Jim Self Websites:  bassethoundmusic.com facebook.com/JimSelfMusic The second installment to tuba player Jim Self's 2002 recording My America , which featured iconic melodies reflective of America's early songwriters like Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel A. Ward's perennial "America the Beautiful" and Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King's country classic "Tennessee Waltz," changes course on his recording My America 2:  Destinations .  His second installment in his America series concentrates on iconic melodies descriptive of America's states and cities, of which Self had lived or worked like the luxurious and bucolic destinations of Kansas City and Georgia.  The recording is a collaboration between Self and arranger Kim Scharnberg, who offer the ensemble of musicians ample space for soloists to play stirring improvisations and demonstrate their fluency in the jazz language. The album starts off with Scharnber...

Album:  Hollywood Christmas Artist:  Richard Williams Label:  Self-Released Website:  https://www.richardmusic.com/   https://www.facebook.com/RichardWillliamsMusic/ Composer and multi-instrumentalist Richard Williams rings in the holiday season with his latest release Hollywood Christmas , a 22-track recording comprised of classic Christmas singalong tunes using a palette of big band, swing jazz and orchestral ambiences.  In the vane of Gene Autry, Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, and The Carpenters, Williams revisits traditional holiday music and celebrates its perennial luster. Partly driven by his Mormon faith, Williams exercises his arranging chops by putting his own touch-ups on a handful of well-known and beloved Christmas-themed songs.  Williams sets the cheerful tone of the album with the opening number, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” The song features the sauve voicing of Alex Stiles, a young vocalist whose style and vocal quality i...

Album:  Within Us Artist:  Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge Label:  Summit Records Website:  https://www.chuckowen.com Composer-bandleader Chuck Owen builds vibrant landscapes with his 19-piece orchestra The Jazz Surge.  Their latest recording Within Us is a compilation of nostalgic swing and big band energy merging with modern practices and creative phrasing.  Owen's compositions and arrangements are steep in traditional jazz parlences while exercising a playful character that integrates influences of contemporary and classic American folk/roots music, blues-infused rhapsodies, and ambient torchlight. The melodic paradigms of the opener "Chelsea Shuffle" are modelesque while maintaining a spontaneous playfulness.  Vibraphonist Warren Wolf adds dimension to the spiraling woodwinds and brass instruments.  The mood turns solemn in "Trail of the Ancients" displaying a Celtic lilt in Sara Caswell's violin.  The track coalesces folksy textures with ...

Album:  Isolation Emancipation Artist:  Mace Francis Plus 11 Label:  Self-Released Website:  http://macefrancis.com Trombonist and bandleader Mace Francis celebrates the virtuosity and uplifting spirit of big band music with his latest endeavor Isolation Emancipation .  Joining Francis is Plus 11, comprised of 11 musicians who stoke the embers of swing jazz, a timepiece that Francis believes is a bygone era though he proves its principle idioms transcend the ages.  Adorned in catchy rhythms and attractive harmonies, the music's appeal is noticeable from the start, crafting a slew of subliminal, melodic passages. The sinewy bursts of the brass and woodwinds, constituted of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and Tahlia Denn on French Horn is bountiful, thrusting ardently while delightfully splayed across the title track.  Harry Mitchell's piano keys bolster a gleeful prance as the steady drumbeats of Bronton Ainsworth are partnered with the bopping pumps ...