Album Review: Puttin' On The Ritz from Rich Willey
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,...