Invitation

Invitation is a recording made over two days [August 16th&17th, 2016]. Colorado (the Denver area in particular) is loaded with world class jazz artists, and that's been building for the past 40 years. It feels like we've reached the point where artists no longer feel they have to flee to the coasts to have their work legitimized by the media and recording powers. Lucky for us labels such as; Capri [Colorado], Origin/OA2 [Wash.], Mack Ave. [Mich.], as well as labels in Canada and Europe continue to look inward as well as outward and serve their homegrown talent. The CJRO is a big band and here has recorded 7 standards and one original by Wil Swindler [sax][TT 54:06] . The band shows many different approaches to the repertoire. On "Birdland" they roar, while "With A Song In My Heart" builds from a soft vintage sound to a contemporary big band sound, featuring strong solos by Paul McKee [tbn] and Eric Erhardt [ts]. The vocals [Heidi Schmidt] are serviceable and too often stepped on and overshadowed by the band sound. Their approach to Gerry Mulligan's "Festive Minor" is to take it as a small combo, with solo honors to Greg Gisbert, with big band fanfares. This band has it together for good listening.