Paul Desmond & Dave Brubeck: Take 5 | Wdr Big Band

As a tight, longstanding jazz ensemble, Yellowjackets has explored a universe all its own of electro-acoustic soundscapes in its nearly four-decade history. Since the band’s eponymous 1981 debut album, Yellowjackets has consistently forged ahead with innovative and challenging artistic statements. For Jackets XL, its 25th album and fourth for Mack Avenue Music Group, the band continues to stretch and reinvent itself with an exciting, full-bodied collaboration with the superb WDR Big Band of Cologne, Germany. The project combines the shapeshifting, multiple GRAMMY® Award-winning quartet with the renowned big band, re-imagining well-known band originals with dynamic new arrangements that feature twists and turns, textures and colors, moving harmonies and bold solos.

Dave Brubeck is still going strong at the age of 83 during this 2004 concert in Baden-Baden at the Festspielhaus, well accompanied by alto saxophonist Bobby Militello, bassist Michael Moore, and his longtime drummer Randy Jones. At a point where many jazz musicians rest on their laurels, revisiting past hits exclusively, the pianist mixes in several recent songs. His quartet easily negotiates the demands of his tricky "London Flat, London Sharp" while Brubeck's haunting "Elegy" showcases Militello on flute and Moore's matchless arco bass. Jones is featured extensively in "Out of the Way of the People" and the inevitable "Take Five." Although Brubeck seems reserved during several of the performances, his lyrical touch is evident throughout much of the concert, which is capped by an encore consisting of a single chorus of "Brahms' Lullaby" at the piano.

Early 90s founded the guitarist Chuck Loeb, the keyboardist Mitchel Forman and drummer Wolfgang Haffner fusion formation Metro, which has since published several albums. Headed by Michael Abene, these three musicians now took on the album Big Band Boom together with the WDR Big Band and guests Nicolas Fiszman (bass) and Roland Peil (perc). The name says it all: Metro pieces in big band with funky horns and driving rhythm section!

For Jackets XL, the Yellowjackets' 25th album and fourth for Mack Avenue Music Group, the band continues to stretch and reinvent itself with an exciting, full-bodied collaboration with the superb WDR Big Band of Cologne, Germany. The project combines the shapeshifting, multiple GRAMMY® Award-winning quartet with the renowned big band, re-imagining well-known band originals with dynamic new arrangements that feature twists and turns, textures and colors, moving harmonies and bold solos. With it's pockets of halcyon, buoyance, mystery, tumult, groove and whimsy, Jackets XL plays out as a multifaceted documentation of how far the band has come. "It was like putting a new set of clothes on," Bob Mintzer says. "This represents how the Yellowjackets play now."

During August 2015 the WDR Big Band performed an impressive concert of large ensemble jazz crossed with African timbres and rhythms, at the Cologne Philharmonic. The guests also included Rhani Krija on percussion, Henry Dorina, electric bass, Woz Kaly, vocals and Jean-Philippe Rykiel, keyboard. The pieces were arranged and conducted by Michael Mossmann. The music is presented by Mokhtar Samba: it is about vibrant rhythms and hypnotising melodies. As Samba feels very close to the music of his ancestors, his pieces are naturally heavily influenced by the elementary power of African rhythms.

The phenomenal guitarist Bireli Lagrene is joined by the WDR Big Band for a concert that is mostly a salute to Django Reinhardt, with a few modern twists added. First of all, Lagrene plays electric guitar. (Reinhardt played some electric guitar late in his career, though he is best known as an acoustic guitarist.) He also adds a vocal to a warm version of "The Shadow of Your Smile" (written over a decade after Reinhardt's death), while the opener, "Place du Tertre," is an explosive bop original by Lagrene that finds him getting a bit too coy cramming in a number of quotes ("Laura," "As Time Goes By," and even "Pop Goes the Weasel"). But Lagrene is at his very best…