New Releases Spotlight: Week of November 30, 2015
This week in The Music Lounge, music director Paul Abella takes a look at three new holiday jazz releases!
Hey, Everyone! It’s officially the holiday season, which means, of course, lots of festive jazz on WDCB! This year we’ve received a number of new seasonal albums that we’ll be playing for you between now and Christmas Day. Let’s take a look at three of them!
The Count Basie Orchestra celebrates its 80th year by releasing A Very Swingin’ Basie Christmas. To director Scotty Barnhart’s credit, they really are trying to keep the brassy sound of the ‘50s Basie band alive, and overall, this is indeed a very swingin’ Christmas disc. The Sammy Nestico arrangements here ("Jingle Bells" and "Good 'Swing' Wenceslas") are absolutely the highlights. Scotty Barnhart clearly loves the band that he’s working with, and his charts are really nice, too. Gordon Goodwin almost succeeds in turning the 'Basie' orchestra into the Big Phat Band on "Sleigh Ride," and it makes for a fascinating melding of the old and the new. Ellis Marsalis helps to knock "Let It Snow" out of the park, and it’s one of my favorite moments on the CD.
Speaking of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, he just released Wrap This! Goodwin’s formula is intact here – a band full of A-list L.A. studio cats, given slick charts that hint at funk and the more contemporary end of the jazz spectrum, without ever losing the heft or excitement of a great big band. "Carol of the Bells" is genuinely interesting with a groove that hints at Herbie Hancock in the ‘80s. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" gets a charming arrangement with the bass playing the melody before the whole band jumps in. "A Christmas Carol" gets Latin-ized, with hints of West Side Story’s "America" thrown into the mix for good measure. Fans of Goodwin’s approach to the big band are going to LOVE this one.
Saxophonist Doug Webb is out with his second release this year, Home For Christmas. Much like Goodwin’s album, this features a cast of top flight L.A. musicians, but unlike the Big Phat Band album, it features a full blown string section (on four tunes anyway). The arrangements, by pianist Corey Allen, are tastefully done, and are really quite nice. The other eight tracks feature Webb with a solid rhythm section, and it sounds great. Even better though, is the fact that Webb goes out of his way to pick out a few tunes that haven’t been played to death. "Toyland" and "The Christmas Waltz" are highlights on the disc, and I’ll probably be bummed on December 26th when I can’t listen to them again until sometime in November 2016.
I’ll have more jazz for you soon here in the music lounge. ‘Til next time…Keep your ears open!
