On The Wild Side (Jazz Compass)
John La Barbera Big Band
Released March 15, 2004
Grammy Nominee Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album 2005
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lQsSSvzjeob1zUz8zSf-jCz-G5WzINHzM
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1gpP4nRwGehyYqImd9jUj4?si=G1Xw27upQzic5VRMWyc_fQ
About:
Buddy Rich fans will instantly recognize this staple of the famed drummer’s live performances. Although Buddy never recorded this monster chart, John La Barbera has featured it on his new big band recording On The Wild Side. An impressive multi-styled tour de force for mature ensembles!
Track Listing:
1. Mayreh (Horace Silver) 4:22
2. So What (Miles Davis) 7:21
3. Tiger of San Pedro (John La Barbera) 4:25
4. Message from Art (Joe La Barbera) 7:15
5. Walk on the Wild Side Suite (Elmer Bernstein) 10:34
6. Cachaca Gotcha (John La Barbera) 5:17
7. Eleanor Rigby (John Lennon / Paul McCartney) 10:31
8. Cloth of Silver — Threads of Blue (John La Barbera) 6:16
9. Highland Crossing (John La Barbera) 6:07
Personnel:
Wayne Bergeron, Dennis Farias, Bob O’Donnell, Clay Jenkins: trumpet
Brian Scanlon: alto, soprano sax, flute, piccolo
Kim Richmond: alto sax
Bob Sheppard, Pat La Barbera (2, 3, 5, 9), Tom Peterson (1, 4, 6-8): tenor sax
Bob Carr: baritone sax, bass clarinet
Bruce Paulson (1, 4, 6-8), Alex Iles, Andy Martin, Bill Reichenbach (2, 3, 5, 9): trombone
Ken Kugler: bass trombone
Bill Cunliffe (1, 4, 6-8), Tom Ranier (2, 3, 5, 9): keyboards
Tom Warrington: bass
Joe La Barbera: drums
Scott Breadman (6): percussion
Recorded January 7 – 8 and March 11, 2002, at Citrus Studios, Glendora, CA
Producer: John La Barbera
Recorded and Mixed by Talley Sherwood
Assistant Engineer: Mike Sherlock
Mastered by Stacy Carson
Photography by Alex Solka
Design: James Frank Dean
Review:
Good things, it has been said, come to those who wait. Well, we’ve
waited a long time for John La Barbera, the middle third of the multi-talented
La Barbera brothers, to record his first big-band album, and it’s good. Check
that; it’s better than good—much closer, one might reasonably argue, to spectacular.
As a composer and arranger, La Barbera knows how to make a big band swing like
there’s no tomorrow; one doesn’t spend nearly two decades playing and writing
for Buddy Rich without learning that. La Barbera has further helped the cause
by putting together an ensemble whose rhythm section (on five tracks), plus
trumpeter Clay Jenkins and tenor saxophonist Bob Shepard, doubles as the Joe La
Barbera Quintet (Bill Cunliffe, piano; Tom Warrington, bass).
Yes, that’s younger brother Joe on drums,
driving the band relentlessly forward, and older brother Pat on tenor, soloing
brightly on five of the nine selections. The rest of the band is a who’s who of
top-drawer West Coast sidemen who can nail anything La Barbera or anyone else
dreams up. The leader even persuaded elder statesman Bud Shank, playing as well
as ever at age seventy-five (when the recording was made), to take the album’s
first solo, on Horace Silver’s fast-moving bop theme “Mayreh.”
Besides transforming the Beatles’ shopworn “Eleanor Rigby” into
an ingenious big band tour de force and reupholstering the dramatic suite from
Elmer Bernstein’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” originally arranged for
Rich, John wrote the growling “Tiger of San Pedro” (which trombonist
Bill Watrous used as the title of one of his ’70s albums), the supple
“Cachaça Gotcha,” mercurial “Cloth of Silver-Threads of
Blue” and evocative “Highland Crossing,” while brother Joe
penned the powerful remembrance of Art Blakey, “Message from Art,” to
which he, Shepard and trombonist Bruce Paulson have added the exclamation
marks.
Pat’s tenor is showcased on “Tiger,”
“Eleanor Rigby” and Miles Davis’ “So What,” his soprano on
“Highland Crossing,” and both instruments on “Wild Side.”
Jenkins solos adroitly on four tracks, trumpeters Wayne Bergeron and Dennis
Farias bare their chops on “Tiger” and “Crossing,”
respectively, and alto Kim Richmond is customarily forceful on
“Gotcha.”
Worth waiting for? Without a doubt. Horace
Silver, who cuts right to the chase, keenly assesses Wild Side in
one dead-on sentence on the album’s cover: “Good arrangements… good
band… good performance.” There’s not much one can add to that.
Jack Bowers (All About Jazz)
