Search - Kenny Wheeler :: Music for Large & Small Ensembles

Music for Large & Small Ensembles
Kenny Wheeler
Music for Large & Small Ensembles
Genres: Jazz, New Age, Pop
 
  •  Track Listings (6) - Disc #1
  •  Track Listings (9) - Disc #2

The singular trumpeter and flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler defies lots and lots of musical rules. Consider Music for Large and Small Ensembles, where he uses an all-star band primarily for nuance, depth, and color at all point...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Kenny Wheeler
Title: Music for Large & Small Ensembles
Members Wishing: 5
Total Copies: 0
Label: Ecm Import
Release Date: 8/15/2000
Album Type: Original recording reissued, Import
Genres: Jazz, New Age, Pop
Styles: Avant Garde & Free Jazz, Modern Postbebop, Bebop
Number of Discs: 2
SwapaCD Credits: 2
UPC: 042284315227

Synopsis

Amazon.com
The singular trumpeter and flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler defies lots and lots of musical rules. Consider Music for Large and Small Ensembles, where he uses an all-star band primarily for nuance, depth, and color at all points. This bucks a trend. After Duke Ellington and Count Basie fine-tuned the big band tradition, the form often meant musical bombast--Woody Herman's Thundering Herd, Maynard Ferguson's big band, etc. The notable exceptions to such a rule include Gil Evans, Maria Schneider, and, emphatically, Kenny Wheeler. The weighting of Wheeler's large ensemble here toward trumpets and trombones more often recalls a classical brass choir than a swing showdown, and the operative word here is "ensemble." From "Opening," where Norma Winstone's wordless vocal and John Abercrombie's guitar lines interact and blend beautifully with the other 17 band members, to the last tune of disc two, where the core group of Wheeler, Abercrombie, John Taylor, Peter Erskine, and Dave Holland deconstruct the standard, "By Myself," Music for Large and Small Ensembles delivers magnificent music played by magnificent musicians working together with verve, power, sensitivity, and daring, but never, ever, bombast. --Michael Ross

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CD Reviews

A landmark recording in the modern big band style
Erik Werkman | 12/29/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Kenny Wheeler's approach to the big band is everything you would hope: powerful, introspective, and innovative. His use of female vocals alongside the brass is incredibly unique. His orchestration is beautiful, and the compositions are fantastic. A must for anyone interested in modern jazz, and certainly modern big band."
Music for Large and Small Ensembles
R. Suttie | 03/22/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)

"A stunning album. Beautiful arrangements, instrumentation and compositions."
STELLAR MUSIC WITH SUPERB FLUENCY
K. Prousalis | drama GREECE | 04/29/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)

"I think that this recording represents musical simplicity and harmony at its best .The compositions are definetely very intellligent ,but at the same time they are expressed very freely ,without losing their authority ,integrity and their strenth in tempo from start to finish .KENNY WHEELER excells along with his top class co-musicians in giving you throughout the whole album the impression , that musical simplicity have as a result a superabundance of a very rich cohesive and fertile sonic texture flowing unforced with harmony detail,grace ,and vitality.YES IT IS A MODERN JAZZ MASTERPIECE AND IMHO WHEELERs BEST ALBUM ."