Smallest and most select of the Bienen School’s wind ensembles, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble (SWE) presents a diverse repertoire of well-known masterworks and contemporary compositions.

“CHERYL BENTYNE/Let’s Misbehave-The Cole Porter Songbook: This is a no brainer. Bentyne brings her well seasoned jazz vocal chops, the jazzbos show up to play and Porter wrote all the songs. With the special sauce that separates this from all the well meaning thrushes that try to till this well trod ground, Bentyne knows how to bring it for something that might not be essential but certainly is required. A well staged, well mounted set of entertainment, jaded adult ears will welcome one more dip in the Porter well when it comes out sounding like this. Well done throughout. On top of all that, this set is Bentyne’s gift to herself for kicking the crap out of cancer last year. Talk about having what it takes!” – MIDWEST RECORD

Grammy finalist for an arrangement (“Smile”) from his last Summit release, critically acclaimed arranger, composer, trombonist, and for this project, vocalist, Pete McGuinness presents a dynamic extremely well-arranged program of some classics – a strong indicator of why his accolades have been impressive!

”The music of George Enescu continues to be a source of discovery for me. As the Fates would have it, though, his Chamber Symphony for 12 Instruments was already familiar to me from a recent Ondine recording by Hannu Lintu conducting the Tampere Philharmonic, which I reviewed only as recently as 36:2. In that review, I stated that the work was new to me and that I had no other versions against which to compare it. Well, that situation didn’t last long, for here is another performance of the piece, which, on my first hearing of it under Lintu, didn’t make a very favorable impression.

Phil Norman leads his critically acclaimed Tentet (the cream of the crop of LA-based session men; Carl Saunders, Andy Martin, Ron Stout, Roger Neumann, Larry Koonse, Rusty Higgins, Scott Whitfield, Tom Rizzo, Christian Jacob, Kevin Axt, Dick Weller, and Brad Dutz) through ten incredibly well-written charts including the Alan Broadbent original, Mendocino Nights† and the Carl Saunder’s penned tribute, Dear Mr. Florence. Since 1995 the group’s ongoing mission remains transforming the sounds of cool modern west coast jazz for the new millennium. Their previous MAMA release stayed, which was ‘live’, stayed on jazz radio’s Top 50 chart for 24 straight weeks.

Winner of the ITEA’s “Roger Bobo Award for Excellence in Recording”

The first recording of Kurt Vonnegut’s libretto! Vonnegut’s libretto is loosely based on The Execution of Private Slovik, a nonfiction book by William Bradford Huie published in 1954. The resulting version is a highly controversial yet entertaining fusion of Stravinsky’s music and the edgy, abrupt Vonnegut text. This is an American soldier’s tale that doesn’t have a happy ending. In the Vonnegut libretto there are four spoken roles, that of the General (narrator), Private Slovik, a Red Cross Nurse, and a Military Policemen.

Since the late 1950s, Bob Florence has been on an unparalleled musical journey and we as listeners have been fortunate enough to go along for the ride. And what an incredible ride it is. He is a true artist in every sense of the word because he is never content to stay in one place. He continues to experiment with all areas of musical expression and in doing so has created some of the most outstanding works of the modern big band era.
-Ken Poston

John Stevens (b. 1951) is Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to being a member of the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, a UW-Madison faculty ensemble-inresidence, he is also a member of the acclaimed tuba/euphonium ensemble Symphonia. The works on this recording include everything from pieces Stevens first performed 35 years ago to some that are quite new to him. Composers from nine countries are represented! The only work on this recording originally written for the tuba is Stevens’s own Elegy, composed in 2004. Everything else has been arranged, transcribed or simply adapted for tuba and piano, tuba, euphonium and piano, or solo tuba.

The Eastman Wind Ensemble is America’s leading wind ensemble. Its core of 50 performers includes undergraduate and graduate students at the Eastman School of Music. Frederick Fennell first formulated the general concept of the wind ensemble at Eastman in 1952 and under his leadership and Donald Hunsberger’s the group became known as the pioneering force in the symphonic wind band movement in the United States and abroad.

These four concertos – two new, two older – have never been recorded! They range from rock-influenced works like Scott McAllister’s Black Dog (based on the Led Zeppelin tune of the same name) and X (based on the music of Alice In Chains) to Katherine Hoover’s jazz concerto written for virtuoso Eddie Daniels, Leslie Bassett’s Fantasy with its wild clarinet virtuosity, 1950s

Flute Bass-ics is an ear-friendly accessible collection of originals and standards, with moods varying from traditional to reggae to funk to contemporary _ it speaks knowingly to ‘Jazz enthusiasts’ as well as the ‘Jazz initiate’.