Jack Sohmer

Herman West Coast jazz scene, for around 25 years now Sea Breeze has remained a beacon of light and hope for both aficionados of the … Read More “Jerry Ascione Big Band: Beautiful Love”

Although the rampant romanticism that suffuses tenorman Allen’s balladeering may not meet the imperatives of contemporary improvisation that avant-gardists have set for our music, so … Read More “Harry Allen: Love Songs Live!”

To label the collective performance on this CD as The Satchmo Legacy is to put forth the boldest of claims ever. It is as if … Read More “Benny Bailey: The Satchmo Legacy”

With a range, power, and technique even the gentle Fats would have killed for, trumpeter Mac Gollehon here engages 12 numbers, four of which-“Eb-Pob,” “Nostalgia,” … Read More “Mac Gollehon and Smokin’ Section: In the Spirit of Fats Navarro”

A contemporary of Rollins, Mobley and Trane, tenorman Buck Hill, of Washington, D.C., managed to elude national fame for decades by remaining a day-job-bound family … Read More “Buck Hill: Uh Huh! Live at Montpelier”

Not knowing what other musical presentations were being offered on the QE II’s Nov. 1999 transatlantic voyage, it nevertheless may be assumed that catching a … Read More “Henry Johnson Quartet: An Evening At Sea”

Best known to jazz historians and record collectors as lead altoman Earl Warren’s replacement in Count Basie’s 1943 to ’47 band, Preston Love, since then … Read More “Preston Love: Omaha Blues”

Global jazz-fusion might be a convenient term to use in reference to at least some of the music that altoman T. K. Blue offers on … Read More “T.K. Blue: Eyes of the Elders”

Although likely to fall between the cracks of the dozens of Ellington tributes released during the globally celebrated centennial anniversary of Duke’s birth last year, … Read More “Andre Previn/David Finck: We Got it Good: An Ellington Songbook”

Outside of Ellington’s three original concerts, as recently reissued on RCA’s mammoth boxed set, this is probably the only recording that brings together so many … Read More “Big Band De Lausanne: Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music”

Short of discovering another batch of previously unissued recordings of the classic late 1930s Goodman big band, the best stroke of fortune in recent years … Read More “Bob Wilber and the Tuxedo Big Band: Fletcher Henderson’s Unrecorded Arrangements for Benny Goodman”

Followers of the Nagel-Heyer label know what to expect from this high quality, amazingly consistent German firm-hot, live, combo-jam performances by some of the best … Read More “George Masso Sextet: C’est Magnifique!”

Satch Plays Fats is rightfully judged, along with Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, as of one of the two most compelling albums that the Armstrong … Read More “Louis Armstrong: Satch Plays Fats”

Satchmo the Great comes largely from the soundtrack of an eponymous TV documentary coproduced and narrated by Edward R. Murrow. With the New Orleans-born swing … Read More “Louis Armstrong: Satchmo the Great”

Recorded in Amsterdam, Milan, Hollywood and New York, the performances on Ambassador Satch are largely of the same order as those on Satchmo the Great, … Read More “Louis Armstrong: Ambassador Satch”

At the height of their success as star soloists with the Benny Goodman orchestra in 1938 and 1939, respectively, drummer Gene Krupa and trumpeter Harry … Read More “Gene Krupa/Harry James: The Complete Capitol Recordings of Gene Krupa and Harry James”

If it’s difficult to avoid a sense of cynicism regarding this studioman outing, it’s only because Severinsen’s highly polished product is too superficial, glitzy and … Read More “Doc Severinsen and his Big Band: Swingin’ the Blues”

Thirty-three years after its first performance at the Village Vanguard under the name of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, today’s version of that inspired group … Read More “The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: Thad Jones Legacy”

Rightly proclaimed as being the most significant concert in jazz history, the Jan. 16, 1938, appearance of the Benny Goodman orchestra at Carnegie Hall was … Read More “Benny Goodman: Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall-1938: Complete”

Co-directed by reedman Miles Osland and pianist/narrator Dick Domek, the Kentucky Jazz Repertory Orchestra is, to my knowledge, the only academically-situated ensemble perpetuating the whole … Read More “Kentucky Jazz Repertory Orchestra: Ellington Celebration”

On this unusual recording, we find two widely experienced North American jazzmen, tenorman Rich Perry and pianist Harold Danko, embracing nine pieces by Brazilian composers … Read More “Rich Perry/Harold Danko: Cancoes do Brasil”

In 1943, when Ben Webster first heard Charlie Parker play the tenor, he is reported to have said, “That horn ain’t s’posed to sound that … Read More “Nick Brignola: All Business”

While some of his sons have received more than considerable attention from both the jazz press and other forms of media, the regrettable fact is … Read More “Ellis Marsalis: Duke in Blue”

Back in the mid 1930s, when jazz itself was as young as most of the musicians playing it, a handful of devoted fans banded together … Read More “Various Artists: The Complete H.R.S. Sessions”

Although endowed with a full, rounded sound, good intonation, and chops to spare, trumpeter Eddie Henderson had the misfortune to enter the business at a … Read More “Eddie Henderson: Reemergence”

A significant addition to Ellington’s latter day recordings, this double-disc release presents for the first time in true stereo every note that the band played … Read More “Duke Ellington: Ellington at Newport 1956 (Complete)”

Recorded in July and August 1956 during the Gillespie big band’s State Department-sponsored tour of South America, the ten tracks heard here augur well for … Read More “Dizzy Gillespie: Dizzy In South America, Vol. 1”

What a responsibility, what an inspiring challenge, what an honor it is to have the opportunity to replicate and help preserve the greatest body of … Read More “Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Live in Swing City Swingin’ With The Duke”

The first American release by New York-based, Russian-born pianist and composer/arranger Nick Levinovsky, this program of six originals and two standards, a swinging “My Favorite … Read More “Nick Levinovsky Big Band: Listen Up!”