1. The Send-Off
2, What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?
3. Trixie’s Little Girl
4. The Swagger
5. Beautiful Dreamer
6. Spellbound
7. You Don’t Know What Love Is
8. Nasty Blues
9. Bittersweet
10. You Don’t Know What Love Is (radio version)
Pete McGuinness - Composer, arranger, vocals, trombone
Dave Pietro, Marc Phaneuf, Tom Christensen, Jason Rigby, Dave Reikenberg - Woodwinds
Bruce Eidem, Mark Patterson, Matt Haviland, Jeff Nelson - Trombones
Jon Owens, Tony Kadlek, Bill Mobley, Chris Rogers - Trumpets
Mike Holober - Piano
Andy Eulau - Bass
Scott Neumann - Drums
While the days of taking a 16-piece band on tour are long over, fortunately record companies and producers continue to issue albums of that genre. Falling
into that category is the Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra’s Strength In Numbers and it is an acknowledgement that there is a market for a big band
that is venturesome and can play with power and precision.
Even before dropping the laser beam on the disc, a reading of the liner notes offered encouragement. One of the producers of the album is John Fedchock who
was one of the stalwarts of Woody Herman’s latter bands and is a leader of his own New York based big band and knows a thing or two about the need for
swinging arrangements. The Send-Off is the send-off for the album and, while not a barn-burner, it does offer tenor-saxophonist Tom Christensen
and drummer Scott Neumann a chance to deftly show their chops. The Michel Legrand chestnut What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?is done up as
an easy-going waltz with some smart expressiveness and then part way through, for some unexplained and unfathomable reason, Pete McGuinness offers a vocal.
McGuinness does the same vocal thing with You Don’t Know What Love Is justifying it on the basis that Chet Baker was one of his
vocal heroes. Sometimes such adulation is best left unrequited.
The balance of the album confirms that McGuinness is a composer and arranger with an invigorating original style who can take advantage of the full palette
of a large orchestra as shown on the Stephen Foster ballad Beautiful Dreamer which is turned into a swaying samba with the soprano sax of Dave
Pietro layered in over the band. Nasty Blues is a swinger of the first order with the saxophone section laying down the melody in the manner of
Count Basie and then the soloists take over, firstly with Dave Pietro on alto, followed by an exchange of choruses by trombonists Mark Patterson and Matt
Haviland. The band’s blazing “shout chorus” is led by trumpeter Jon Owens. Finally Bittersweet opens with an extended piano offering from Mike
Holober after which McGuinness carries the load on trombone, showing he can deliver the goods in a brusque but evocative style.
This is an invigorating release from a solid outfit.
Pierre Giroux
CD Reviews
Summit DCD 627
