Purple

Amazon.com
In the shrinking jazz economies, big bands are the first to fade. But Ken Schaphorst has held his aggregate defiantly together through thin times in Boston and even from afar once he moved to Wisconsin. So it is that this fabulous session captures at once a gelled unit of likeminded players (including past collaborators Doug Yates on reeds, Dave Ballou and Cuong Vu on trumpets, Curtis Hasselbring on tombone, Uri Caine on piano), and a collection of musicians who all straddle the mainstream and increasingly fluid avant-garde. Schaphorst's music captures the Ellingtonian spirit of using the orchestra as an instrument, as the band tackles sudden shifts and starts with aplomb. These are tunes that revel in the possible combinations of brass, reeds, piano, and rhythm, often charging into a swinging section and then out into a calm pool of guitar-strummed backing. With complex, large-ensemble music, band members can stumble over each other, and this 19-piece orchestra's ability to dance all over Schaphorst's fine compositions is testament to both the group's accomplished core and the composer's excellent chops. --Andrew Bartlett

From Jazziz
Purple is experimental in the best sense of the word, as conductor/leader Schaphorst uses unusual shadings and combinations of instruments not to prove his adventurousness, but as another color on his palette. His vision is epic in scope - many of the tunes move through several ambitious sections rather than settling into a verse-chorus-verse format, and the sounds Schaphorst wrings from the band are wonderfully varied.

For example, "Uprising" starts by building waves of sound, then gives way to Donny McCaslin's eloquent tenor solo. McCaslin soon rides an intricate Latin groove courtesy of the band's two drummers, Dane Richeson and Jamey Haddad. The piece ends 12 minutes later pretty much as it began.

Schaphorst continually confounds expectations. On "Blues Almighty," the band settles into a deep, Count Basie-like shuffle only to be broken up first by John Medeski's wailing, unaccompanied organ solo and then by Brad Shepik's screeching distorted guitar. On "Subterranean," Dave Taylor's contemplative bass-trombone solo gives way to rich and bombastic horns.

The impressive playing (tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake and pianist Uri Caine are also standouts) and the ambitious composing and arranging are good signs for Naxos' new jazz imprint and are evidence that big-band jazz is alive and kicking.

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