One of the best of 2009
David Zehring | La Veta, CO United States | 02/20/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I'm old enough to have been a big fan of Count Basie and Woody Herman while they were still touring and recording, and I later embraced the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band as well. The Gil Evans recordings with and without Miles Davis introduced me to another kind of "big band", more orchestral and less hard-charging, but no less satisfying. More recently I've admired the Maria Schneider recordings, but I wasn't familiar with The John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble. I am now, and I'm delighted.
This recording is uniformly outstanding. The orchestrations are complex, rich and original, and the lead players are just as good. Nineteen instrumentalists and a voice combine to make some of the most interesting jazz music I've heard, either live or on CD, in several years. Magnificent. Don't miss this."