CD Review: Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra - Basically Baker.

There was something about the great big bands - they all brought an identifiable sound to the [turn]table. You rarely needed to look at the label to know if it was Dorsey, Goodman, Shaw or Miller. Likewise, Ellington and Basie. Later, Gillespie, Raeburn, Thornhill, Kenton and Herman moved things forward. When touring bands became uneconomical the rehearsal, occasional gig, big bands appeared - both high and low profile. In the former category, the bands of Jones/Lewis and Clarke/Boland spring to mind. Kenny Wheeler and Mike Gibbs and, of course, Wynton's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

David Baker absorbed all these influences and shared them over many years in Downbeat articles and analyses of various aspects of jazz.

Perhaps the first great jazz educator.

The Buselli-Wallarab Orchestra take the man's music to the top level and Baker, who died on March 26 this year, would surely be proud of this double CD, the second album, devoted to his compositions. The one non-Baker piece is Dizzy's Bebop but it isn't really an exception as the request was by Dizzy himself to put his (Baker's) own stamp on it!

Randy Brecker, Wayne Wallace and Dave Stryker have featured tracks but the bulk is done by the band soloists and they hit paydirt every time! I'm going to be playing this one long after the other discs in the In Tray have had their, mandatory, one play before becoming a coffee table placemat (must buy a bigger coffee table). 

I doubt if there will be a better big band CD [double] this year or any year until they make Basically Baker Vol 3. If you only ever buy one post-Swing Era big band record - check this one out first!

Lance.

Available now on Patois Records.

Tony Kadleck, Scott Belck, Graham Breedlove, Jeff Conrad, Mark Buselli, Pat Harbison (tpt); Tim Coffman, Freddie Mendoza, Brennan Johns (tbn); Rich Dole (bs. tmb); Tom Walsh, Bill Sears, Rich Perry, Rob Dixon, Ned Boyd (saxes); Celeste Holler-Seraphinoff (horn); Luke Gillespie (pno); Mitch Shiner (vibs); Monika Herzig (celeste); Dan Perantoni (tuba); Jeremy Allen ( bs); Steve Houghton (dms). + Randy Brecker (tpt);  David Stryker (gtr); Wayne Wallace (tmb).