Any time that local musicians get projects released of some of the rarely recorded New Orleans music, it is something to be celebrated. Jesse McBride has been working on making sure some of the great non-trad jazz of the Crescent City is played and remembered for the past decade at least, and here, under the directions of the still-very-much-here titan Harold Battiste, he has put together big band versions of some of those compositions. These songs will be familiar to anyone who has been out hearing jazz in the last 30 years.Buy on Amazon
The dynamic modern drive of “Marzique Dancing” that has that 1970s Maynard Ferguson/Thad Jones vibe when that sounded new and hip. And hearing a big band negotiate the changing time signatures of “Whistle Stop” and “Magnolia Triangle” with punch and energy has a certain thrill. There’s also their take on the pretty melodies of “Nevermore” with the sweet altos of Rex Gregory and Roderick Paulin before Derek Douget takes a beautiful soprano solo. Those musicians make up part of a 22-piece band with many of the best young jazz players from Frenchmen Street to the Lakefront and all in between. They sound like they know and dig the music. And added bonus is the classic lost dance of “Harold’s Church,” a Battiste piece that puts swinging horns over a mix between the Popeye beat of the 1960s and a pushing back beat. With this recording, the Next Generation Big Band comes up on the recurring falsehood that New Orleans is all about “Didn’t He Ramble” and its ilk, and, like each generation of jazz musicians before, simply destroys it with the great precision and quality of the music and those playing it.