| Jazz |
There is something deeply rewarding about a big band that resists the easy temptation to simply overwhelm. Too often, large jazz ensembles equate scale with spectacle, trading subtlety for sheer volume. Yet the great orchestras, the ones that endure, understand that power lies not in saturation but in nuance. They lean into the details, the turn of a phrase, the tension between brass and reeds, the gentle counterpoint woven between rhythm and harmony. It is in those details that the music breathes, and it is in those moments that the big band achieves its highest form: honoring not just the composer whose music it plays, nor merely the institution of the orchestra itself, but the listener, invited into a world of sound that is at once intimate and grand.
The Birdland Big Band, founded in 2006 by drummer and bandleader Tommy Igoe, has made precisely that philosophy its calling card. Over the past two decades, it has become something of a phenomenon in New York, where consistency is itself a rare currency. Week after week, in the crowded heart of Midtown Manhattan, the band transforms its namesake club into a proving ground for big band music in the twenty-first century. It has long been the most reliably popular jazz ensemble in the city, not merely because of its technical polish, but because it refuses to treat the big band as a museum piece.
The musicians who make up this ensemble are drawn from an extraordinary range of backgrounds: pit orchestras from Broadway musicals, national jazz tours, pop stadium acts. This eclecticism matters. It infuses the group with a musical vocabulary far broader than that of a standard repertory orchestra. Their repertoire is equally expansive: they may play Ellington with reverence one night, a global fusion arrangement the next, and then something entirely contemporary. Igoe himself framed the mission with disarming clarity: “The world doesn’t need another ordinary big band,” he once remarked. “What it needs is an unforgettable, spectacular show that can bring new audiences to this incredible art form.”
That ethos carried them across the United States during their tours of 2012 and 2013, when the band brought its particular blend of tradition and innovation to concert halls far beyond New York. Yet it is in the recordings, particularly this latest project, that one can hear the group’s identity crystallize most fully.
Listening to this album, one is transported into a soundscape that feels simultaneously retro and new. There is a definite kinship with the golden age of big bands in the 1950s and 1960s, a time when orchestras balanced swing with sophistication. Yet threaded through the music is a trace of Broadway theatricality, unmistakable, given both the pedigree of the players and the sheer polish of the arrangements. It is jazz with a touch of showmanship, though never cheapened by it. Instead, the arrangements gleam with the precision of Broadway while retaining the spontaneity and freedom that defines great jazz.
At the center of this project stands trombonist and composer Mark Miller, a figure whose career has unfolded along the porous border between theater and jazz. Miller came of age musically in the Broadway ecosystem, and by 2002 he was touring with Swing and the ambitious Movin’ Out, Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp’s hybrid of pop and ballet. He has played in front of cavernous arenas with Joel himself, before audiences that might never have encountered a jazz trombonist otherwise. Later, he became a featured soloist in Come Fly Away, a musical homage to Frank Sinatra, which enjoyed a six-month Broadway run before embarking on its own national tour.
For the past twelve years, however, Miller has devoted himself to the Birdland Big Band, where he has emerged not only as its lead trombonist but also one of its principal creative voices. It is no accident that a trombonist would find the big band idiom irresistible: brass instruments are the lifeblood of the form, their timbres shaping both the elegance and the punch of the ensemble. But what distinguishes Miller is not merely his fluency in the idiom of the brass section, it is his willingness to think beyond it.
His arrangements do not wield brass like a blunt instrument. Rather, they move with precision and lightness, layering instruments in ways that create transparency rather than density. His orchestrations are alive with space: motifs dart in and out, countermelodies shimmer, textures thicken and thin like breath. The effect is an ensemble that never feels burdened by its size. Instead, it feels agile, capable of moments of sheer force but equally at home in passages of intimacy. It is this equilibrium, between weight and weightlessness, that defines the unique sound of the Birdland Big Band under Miller’s pen.
What is most striking, though, is the sincerity that pervades the music. In an era when jazz can sometimes tilt toward the cerebral or the nostalgic, aiming either to impress with complexity or to comfort with familiarity, the Birdland Big Band offers something different: music that is both intelligent and accessible, inventive yet heartfelt. Listening to this album, there is none of the detachment I sometimes feel when encountering other contemporary big bands. Here, every note feels animated by purpose, every phrase shaped by conviction. The pleasure is not episodic but continuous, unfolding from the opening track to the final cadence.
In the end, this is perhaps the highest compliment one can pay: that this big band, in its conception and execution, embodies the best of the tradition without ever feeling beholden to it. It is music that honors its composer, elevates its performers, and rewards its audience. It is, quite simply, one of the most compelling big band projects I have encountered in years.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, September 19th 2025
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Track Listing :
Storybook (Featuring Brandon Lee, Kenny Ascher & Nathan Childers)
Water Lily (Featuring Troy Roberts & Kenny Ascher)
Tenderly (Featuring Nicole Zuraitis & Sam Dillon)
Chorale And Alleluia (Featuring Troy Roberts & Kenny Ascher)
Sail Away (Featuring David DeJesus & Glenn Drewes)
WTF (Featuring David DeJesus, Sam Dillon, Chris Smith, James Burton III & Sara Jacovino)
Close Your Eyes (Featuring Nicole Zuraitis, Kenny Ascher & James Borowski)
Concierto De Aranjuez
Spain (Featuring Brandon Lee, Nathan Childers & Chris Smith)
The Doubledown (Featuring Jason Marshall, Ron Wilkins, Noriko Ueda & Mark Miller)
Nonsense (Featuring Nicole Zuraitis & Ron Wilkins)
Musicians:
Vocalist: Nicole Zuraitis
Alto saxes: Nathan Childers, David DeJesus
Tenor saxes: Troy Roberts, Sam Dillon
Bari Sax: Jason Marshall
Flutes: David DeJesus, Sam Dillon, Nathan Childers
Trumpets: Raul Agraz, John Walsh, Brandon Lee, Glenn Drewes, Max Darché
Trombones: Mark Miller, James Burton III, Ron Wilkins, Sara Jacovino, James Borowski (bass)
Piano: Kenny Ascher, Adam Birnbaum
Bass: Noriko Ueda
Drums: Chris Smith
Musical Director: David DeJesus.