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Reviewers: Tony Augarde [Editor], Steve Arloff, Nick Barnard, Pierre Giroux, Don Mather, James Poore, Glyn Pursglove, George Stacy, Bert Thompson, Sam Webster, Jonathan Woolf



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THE PETE McGUINNESS
JAZZ ORCHESTRA

Strength In Numbers

Summit DCD 627

 

 

1. The Send-Off

2, What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?

3. Trixie’s Little Girl

4. The Swagger

5. Beautiful Dreamer

6. Spellbound

7. You Don’t Know What Love Is

8. Nasty Blues

9. Bittersweet

10. You Don’t Know What Love Is (radio version)

Pete McGuinness - Composer, arranger, vocals, trombone

Dave Pietro, Marc Phaneuf, Tom Christensen, Jason Rigby, Dave Reikenberg - Woodwinds

Bruce Eidem, Mark Patterson, Matt Haviland, Jeff Nelson - Trombones

Jon Owens, Tony Kadlek, Bill Mobley, Chris Rogers - Trumpets

Mike Holober - Piano

Andy Eulau - Bass

Scott Neumann - Drums

While the days of taking a 16-piece band on tour are long over, fortunately record companies and producers continue to issue albums of that genre. Falling into that category is the Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra’s Strength In Numbers and it is an acknowledgement that there is a market for a big band that is venturesome and can play with power and precision.

Even before dropping the laser beam on the disc, a reading of the liner notes offered encouragement. One of the producers of the album is John Fedchock who was one of the stalwarts of Woody Herman’s latter bands and is a leader of his own New York based big band and knows a thing or two about the need for swinging arrangements. The Send-Off is the send-off for the album and, while not a barn-burner, it does offer tenor-saxophonist Tom Christensen and drummer Scott Neumann a chance to deftly show their chops. The Michel Legrand chestnut What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?is done up as an easy-going waltz with some smart expressiveness and then part way through, for some unexplained and unfathomable reason, Pete McGuinness offers a vocal. McGuinness does the same vocal thing with You Dont Know What Love Is justifying it on the basis that Chet Baker was one of his vocal heroes. Sometimes such adulation is best left unrequited.

The balance of the album confirms that McGuinness is a composer and arranger with an invigorating original style who can take advantage of the full palette of a large orchestra as shown on the Stephen Foster ballad Beautiful Dreamer which is turned into a swaying samba with the soprano sax of Dave Pietro layered in over the band. Nasty Blues is a swinger of the first order with the saxophone section laying down the melody in the manner of Count Basie and then the soloists take over, firstly with Dave Pietro on alto, followed by an exchange of choruses by trombonists Mark Patterson and Matt Haviland. The band’s blazing “shout chorus” is led by trumpeter Jon Owens. Finally Bittersweet opens with an extended piano offering from Mike Holober after which McGuinness carries the load on trombone, showing he can deliver the goods in a brusque but evocative style.

This is an invigorating release from a solid outfit.

Pierre Giroux

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