A Mighty, Moody Album and a Lincoln Center Gig by the Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra

The rain-slicked streetcorner tableau on the album cover of the Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra’s latest release Without a Trace – streaming at Bandcamp – Is truth in advertising. In recent years the group have taken a turn into moody, brassy latin-inspired sounds, something they excel at. They’re at Dizzy’s Club on Sept 3, with sets at 7:30 and 9:30. Cover is steep – $35 – but like most A-list large jazz ensembles not named the Maria Schneider Orchestra, you don’t get many chances to see them. This time out the lineup includes singer Carolyn Leonhart; alto saxophonists Jon Gordon and Jay Brandford; tenor saxophonists Rob Middleton and Tim Armacost; baritone saxophonist Terry Goss; trumpeters Nathan Eklund, Dave Smith, Chris Rogers, and Andy Gravish; trombonists Matt McDonald, Jason Jackson and Matt Haviland; bass trombonist Max Seigel; pianist Roberta Piket; bassist Todd Coolman and drummer Andy Watson.

They open the album with a an expansively layered, brassy cha-cha arrangement of Kurt Well’s Speak Low, a feature for Steve Wilson’s allusive, melismatic alto sax, echoed by trumpeter Chris Rogers. Watson’s stampeding drums kick off a tasty series of chromatic riffs from the brass to wind it up.

With a stunningly misty wistfulness, Leonhart gives voice to the longing and angst in Reeves’ moodily latin-inspired title track, Jim Ridl’s tightly clustering piano ceding to Armacost’s more optimistic tenor solo. Likewise, they turn toward Vegas noir in Reeves’ broodingly bouncy reinvention of All or Nothing At All, following the bandleader’s bluesy, bubbling solo up to a haggard, white-knuckle-intense crescendo.

Incandescence could be a Gil Evans tune, maintaining a grim intensity throughout Reeves’ distantly Ravel-esque portrait of starlight over the French countryside. Vibraphonist Dave Ellson moves carefully, Ridl more menacingly, Wilson’s soprano sax peeking and glissandoing with a relentless unease.

Reeves based his own vampy arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s Juju on the composer’s most recent chart for the song and beefed it up with bright banks of brass. Tenor saxophonist Rob Middleton’s solo draws closely on Shorter’s own modally-charged work on the original.

Reeves then looks to Alberto Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No. 1 for the central hook for the album’s most epic track, Shape Shifter, with gritty close harmonies, Ridl’s Arabic-tinged piano and Reeves’ alto flugelhorn solo vividly bringing to mind the most cinematic side of early 60s Gil Evans – although a relatively free interlude with Ridl leading the randomness is a detour the song really doesn’t need. The brightly gusty closing cut, Something for Thad is a Thad Jones shout-out. Many flavors and lots to savor here.

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Dafnis Prieto Brings His Lush, Gorgeous Latin Big Band Sounds to the Jazz Standard Next Month

Over the course of his career, drummer Dafnis Prieto has immersed himself in an enormous number of influences. So it’s no surprise that the new album by his explosive Big Band, Back to the Sunset – streaming at Spotify – is a salute to every latin jazz artist he’s drawn inspiration from, sometimes three composers in a single song! That mammoth ambition pays mighty dividends throughout the album’s nine epic tracks. Prieto’s compositions are very democratic, with tons of animated call-and-response and counterpoint, and everybody in the band gets time in the spotlight. This seventeen-piece crew are playing a short stand at the Jazz Standard June 6-10, with sets at 7:30 and 9:30 PM; cover is $30.

Trumpeter Brian Lynch takes centerstage on and off, with and without a mute, in the blazing opening number, Una Vez Más. Pianist Manuel Valera tumbles and then delivers a contrastingly elegant solo; the rest of the trumpet line (Mike Rodríguez, Nathan Eklund, Alex Sipiagin and Josh Deutsch) build a conflagration over a slinky Afro-Cuban groove; the band storm up to a catchy four-chord riff and a blast of a coda. Prieto dedicates all this to Lynch, along with Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri.

Is The Sooner the Better a mashup of bossa nova and Fort Apache flavor, since it’s a shout-out to Jerry Gonzalez and Egberto GIsmonti? With its rising exchanges throughout the band and relentlessly suspenseful pulse, it’s closer to the Brazilian composer’s most broodingly cinematic work. Baritone saxophonist Chris Cheek gets a tantalizingly brief, gruff solo, tenor saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum keeps it dark but gets more expansive, then piano and brass carry it away,

Cheek takes a wryly jovial solo to open Out of the Bone, whidh begins as a stunning, slashing mashup of Ethiopiques and Afro-Cuban styles. Massed brass carries the tune into more symphonic territory, then a droll, chattering interlude, and finally a round of trombones: Tim Albright, Alan Ferber, Jacob Garchik and Jeff Nelson.

Interestingly, the album’s gorgeously lingering, lavish title track is dedicated to Andrew Hill and Henry Threadgill, who takes a wryly spacious, peek-a-boo cameo on alto sax. The album’s longest number, Danzonish Potpourri, shifts suddenly from bluesy gravitas, to lush sweep, hushed piano-based glimmer and then a towering bolero spiced with shivery horn accents. How do they end this beast of a tune? With a coy Apfelbaum melodica solo.

Guest altoist Steve Coleman bubbles brightly, then hands off to trumpeter Nathan Eklund in Song for Chico, a cheery Veracruz-flavored number, much of which sounds like a long, joyous outro. Individual voices leap out from every corner of the sonic picture in the triumphantly shuffling Prelude Para Rosa, which like so many other tracks here morphs unexpectedly, in this case to a moody cha-cha with a spiraling Román Filiú alto sax solo.

The no-nonsense, bustling Two For One has similarly vast scattershot voicings, a smoky Apfelbaum solo followed by Valera’s scrambling attack and then a wry wind-down from Prieto and multi-percussionist Roberto Quintero. The album’s final number is the aptly titled The Triumphant Journey, dedicated to Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo, with fiery cascades of Ethiopian riffage and a sudden shift to trumpet-fueled clave.

What a blast this album must have been to make, for a lineup that also includes trumpeters Mike Rodríguez, Alex Sipiagin and Josh Deutsch; alto saxophonist Michael Thomas and bassist Ricky Rodríguez.