Top-call studio trumpeter Paul Cacia, who studied with Cat Anderson and Arturo Sandoval, materialized after a long hiatus to assemble his 10th album, his first in 15 years. It’s a compilation of sessions he organized from 1991 through 2005, and the list of players will make name-droppers drool: Arrangers include Bill Holman, Sam Nestico, Pete Rugolo and Ernie Wilkins, with Cacia listed on seven of nine tracks.
There is a reverb-drenched arrangement of “Nessun Dorma,” an aria from Puccini’s opera Turandot. Only a canine critic can appreciate Cacia’s stratospheric flights. Jazz-wise, “Take the ‘A’ Train” features tenorist Don Menza and trumpeter Snooky Young. Vocalist Jennifer Wood sounds at home on “Why Don’t You Do Right,” with pianist Paul Smith and trumpeter “Sweets” Edison. An excellent Rugolo chart on “Angel Eyes” includes trumpeters Pete and Conte Candoli and pianist Jimmy Rowles. There is also intense Latin percussion from Tito Puente, Victor Pantoja and Ray Armando pushing the studio-sized orchestra on “Love for Sale.”
The centerpiece is another Rugolo arrangement: his own tune, “Overtime,” with tenorist Pete Christlieb, altoist Gabe Baltazar, trombonist Bill Watrous and drummer Louis Bellson. Actually, there are more than a dozen soloists on “Overtime” (the only track with no Cacia solo), but no one seems to play more than 16 bars. A more serious shortcoming: total album time is 38 minutes.
Related Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro