jazz2love

Album:  Puttin' On The Ritz Artist:  Rich Willey Label: Boptism Music Website: boptism.com/store Composer, arranger, and bandleader Rich Willey leads a big band of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion instruments through a setlist of original scores alongside jazz standards and modern jewels in the rough in his offering Puttin' on the Ritz .  Part of the recording concentrates on Willey's acumen to parlay modern tunes into big band gems, giving Frank Zappa and George Duke's blues rock melody "Uncle Remus" a sophisticated sheen balancing recurring motifs with improvised passages. Playing the trumpet, bass trumpet, valve trombone, tuba and Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI), Willey demonstrates multiple facets in his musicianship.  Sometimes jumbling the horns like in sections of "Uncle Remus" and sometimes creating ambient swells like in "Song for Janet," dedicated to his wife.  One of Willey's original works, "Holy Trinity,...

Album:  Ain’t It Grand Artist:  Glenn Crytzer Orchestra Label:  Blue Rhythm Records Website:  www.glenncrytzer.com Ain’t It Grand , the latest project from the Glenn Crytzer Orchestra, makes audiences feel like they are attending a Jazz Age Lawn Party circa 1930’s.  The sizzle of the horns, the rattle of the drums, the pearlescent texture of the piano keys, and the caressing tone of the vocals are hallmarks of America’s Jazz Age, spanning from the Roaring ‘20s to the post-Prohibition period of the 1930s.  The music is reminiscent of the days of Cab Calloway, Paul Whiteman, and Artie Shaw, when 53rd Street in Manhattan, renamed swing street, was the hub of cabarets and dancehalls featuring boogie woogie, hot jazz, lively blues, ragtime,  Dixieland, and swing. A collection of old-time favorites, forgotten treasures, and originals, the 2-disc compilation is a chock full of merriment from start to finish.  “Who’s Yehoodi” is a prime example of a ...