| Jazz |
Generally, I really can’t stand albums of old song covers, but this time I must admit that this Big Band is truly impressive, both musically and in terms of the choice of voices it incorporates. This New York-based musician, composer, and arranger, a Broadway regular, leaves his unmistakable mark here with undeniable talent. Eleven vocalists for eleven tracks offer us vocally high-level interpretations that make us feel like we’re rediscovering these songs that everyone has heard at least once in their life.
Danny’s arrangements are not strangers to this sensation, bringing a form of modernism to each track without altering them from the original scores. Danny contributed to two GRAMMY-winning projects with The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra and the 8-Bit Big Band, and has performed on Broadway stages, on dozens of studio albums, substituted with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and can be heard playing the trumpet in the famous game Red Dead Redemption 2. His music has also been featured on PBS, NPR, HBO, and Good Morning America. Danny has graced prestigious stages, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Broadway’s Lyceum Theater, Birdland Jazz Club, The Blue Note NYC, Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Bimhaus (Netherlands), and the North Sea Jazz Festival. A frequent traveling musician, Danny has performed in the UK, South Korea, Israel, Germany, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Belgium.
Everything is done on this album to captivate the listener, and it works. “Voices” is a gift to the beautiful voices that only need to elegantly settle upon it to shine like eleven candles on a birthday cake, with genuine listening pleasure. If you take the time to listen to this album multiple times, you’ll notice how this trumpeter, composer, and arranger has created brass sections of unparalleled beauty on each track in this genre of music.
This is how the label of “Essentials” ended up being affixed to this album through the gentle magic of Bayou Blue Radio and Paris-Move editorial decisions.
Thierry De Clemensat
USA correspondent – Paris-Move
Editor in chief Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, August 7th 2023
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