Trance Dance: Live in Concert [Live]

Editorial Reviews
From Jazziz
The music on this two-CD set comes from a 1990 concert at the Smithsonian Institution's Baird Auditorium. Kirchner, an accomplished composer, arranger, and woodwind player, leads a band that includes trumpeters Bob Burridge and Bryan Lynch, saxophonist/clarinetist/flutist Ralph Lalama, bassoonist/bass clarinetist Michael Rabinowitz, trombonist Douglas Purviance, keyboardist Carlton Holmes, bassist Chip Jackson, and drummer Ron Vincent.

The band's personnel - with the leader playing six instruments and every musician except Vincent and Purviance doubling - gives Kirchner a sonic palette not available in most medium-sized groups, and he takes advantage of it to produce some unique colors. Certainly, you don't hear a bassoon in a jazz nonet often, especially one played by as strong a soloist as Rabinowitz. On the lovely "Velas Içadas," by Brazilian composer Ivan Lins, there are pleasing sections played by two clarinets, cup-muted trumpet, bass clarinet, and bass trombone. Kirchner blends the influence of several arrangers - Gil Evans, the guys who wrote for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band - but he's his own man.

Kirchner tackles the music of a wide range of composers, including Wayne Shorter, Jane Ira Bloom, Marc Copland, and Burt Bacharach. His sole original here is the pastoral tribute to Greg Herbert, "Theme for Gregory." All the soloists are at the top of their games, including the fine post-boppers Lynch, Burridge, and Lalama, the inventive, tasty, fluent Holmes, and Jackson. It's unusual to hear a bassist featured in a group this size as much as Jackson is, but he's got it all going for him - chops, unusual techniques - so why not turn him loose?

Trance Dance: Live in Concert,The Bill Kirchner Nonet,Challenge,Fusion,Hard Bop,Jazz,Jazz Music,Pop

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