GRP All-Star Big Band
Live! (GRP).
Dave Grusin’s 17-man GRP All-Star Big Band lineup is a supergroup of contemporary jazz frontmen and session performers, but the sum isn’t equal to the parts, as the GRP disc recorded in Tokyo proves. Chalk it up to the excesses of the L.A. scene (multi-sax man Tom Scott is the band leader), with ample virtuoso solos but loose ensemble synchrony. The temporal problems are evident in “Oleo,” Michael Abene’s reworking of the Sonny Rollins piece in minor chords. “Blue Train” slumbers with George Bohanon’s slippery trombone paraphrasing. Nice touches do pop up, as in Gary Burton’s flittering vibraphone lines dancing to Dave Weckl’s tribal-inspired drumming on “Sing, Sing, Sing.” The liner notes claim “the big band is where jazz songs want to go when they grow up,” but the genre is best left to practioners who will take it seriously.