Search - Mike Holober & Gotham Jazz Orchestra :: Quake

Whether it was Duke Ellington s magnificent aggregation, Gil Evans s outstanding ensembles, or Toshiko Akiyoshi / Lew Tabackin s outstanding outfit, the most successful jazz orchestras married the arranging and compositional ideas of the leader with the individual talents, tones, and timbres of the group. The New York-born pianist/composer/arranger/bandleader/educator Mike Holober & The Gotham Orchestra one of the Big Apple s most innovative and engaging big bands unveil their soulful sounds on their Sunnyside debut, Quake: a magnificent, seven-track recording that will definitely shake up the music world with its quiet-fire improvisational intensity and compositional cool.

The seventeen-piece band is composed of New York's finest: saxophonists Dave Pietro, Jon Gordon, Charles Pillow, Steve Kenyon, and Tim Ries; trumpeters Tony Kadleck, Craig Johnson, Brian Pareschi, and Scott Wendholt; and trombonists Bruce Eidem, Mark Patterson, Pete McGuinness, and Nate Durham; supported by a rhythm section featuring guitarist Steve Cardenas, bassist John Hebert, John Riley on drums and Holober on piano. From the first notes of the title piece of Quake, Holober impressed with interesting sounds, harmonies and voicings while the band showed extreme precision, writes Budd Kopman of All About Jazz, who caught the ensemble live at the Jazz Standard in February of 2008. ...the arranging produced a remarkable range of sonic mixtures. A single voice would often come forward to play a line and blossom into a solo, blurring the distinction between the composed and the improvised sections of the work, and the solos were spread around the group, each attractive and exciting yet utterly unique.

The uniqueness and attractiveness of Holober and company is evident on this CD. The title track leads off with contrapuntal horn lines, juxtaposed with swelling melodies, contrasted by the noir-nuanced, Fender Rhodes-sizzled, cinematic swing of Twist & Turn. Roc & a Soft Place features pensive horns, with bass clarinet shadings. Note to Self is a medium tempo companion to the immortal, John Lewis / MJQ number, Skating in Central Park, while Thrushes is pulsed by a hip, waltzy bass ostinato. Two of the seven tracks display Holober's genius at elaborating and expanding on pop music: George Harrison s Here Comes the Sun rises in an alternate melodic universe, and sets into an up-tempo, 4/4-paced piano-less quartet. And the Keith Richards / Mick Jagger number, Ruby Tuesday is reinvented with Holober s Chopinesque piano intro that builds into a Latin tinged excursion, laced with Asian-sounding horn riffs. Throughout the CD, Holober s subtle and succinct pianism effortlessly channels Bill Evans s harmonic vistas and Herbie Hancock s rhythmic imagination.

Creating new sounds by brilliantly blending his musical vision with the multiple voices of his ensembles has been Mike Holober s stock-in-trade for a long time. Born in 1957 in New York, Holober worked with the legendary Village Vanguard Orchestra and the Joe Roccisano Nonet. He has also worked with a stellar cast of stars including, Dave Liebman, Charles Pillow, Brian Blade, Ron Carter, Peter Erskine, Nick Brignola, Wolfgang Muthspiel, John Abercrombie, Tim Ries, and Randy Brecker. His three previous releases as a leader are the quartet recording Canyon (Sons of Sound, 2003) and Thought Trains (Sons of Sound, 2004), and Wish List (Sons of Sound, 2006) (both with The Gotham Orchestra.)