Search - David Berger and the Sultans of Swing :: Marlowe

To get straight to the point, this is some of the best big-band writing and playing you're likely to hear; the best I've heard from a new band since Thad Jones-Mel Lewis. There is a marvelous variety of moods and textures here, and not a note that doesn't contribute to the whole. This is music that one wants to hear again and again; this is not a CD that will gather dust on the shelf. Marlowe is as compelling in his musical incarnation as on the page or screen. Maybe more so, because this piece is as good or better even after you know how it ends. The music David Berger and his dedicated company have brought us here is that rarest of contemporary works of art: the real thing. Hear it well. It's got the message. Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University in Newark.