August 2008

Rick Wald 16/NYC
Play That Thing
Glowbow

By Forrest Dylan Bryant

This unconventional big band may not have the name recognition of some other ensembles, but it offers as rich and engaging an experience as you’re likely to find anywhere. Saxophonist Wald’s pliant, modernist compositions and spiky arrangements of classics seem constantly on the move—great shuffling beasts that suddenly break into celebratory glee. That episodic structure provides fertile ground for improvisation, as a multigenerational platoon of soloists takes the music in strikingly personal new directions, each putting their own stamp on the whole.