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Music
Hot Tickets: Brash brass
By PHILIP BOOTH
Published October 13, 2005
The high-energy brass blast that defines Maynard Ferguson's groups is central to the sound of the Dan McMillion Jazz Orchestra, a Tampa Bay area ensemble organized a decade ago. Little wonder about that Ferguson connection: Trumpeter and flugelhorn player McMillion, a veteran of the Woody Herman Orchestra, is an aficionado of Ferguson's '60s bands, and the Tampa bandleader's library is chock-full of Ferguson arrangements. McMillion's group, too, typically includes former Ferguson sidemen - this time it's trombonist Keith Oshiro and bassist Joe Porter.
Give It One, the orchestra's third CD for the widely distributed big band-oriented Sea Breeze label (and fifth album overall) re-emphasizes that connection: Ferguson co-wrote the title track and Footpath Cafe. McMillion and Co. also turn in high-energy performances of several jazz staples - Just Friends, Birdland, Milestones, Watermelon Man, Naima - along with bandleader Don Sebesky's Fan It Janet and a pop familiarity, Bridge Over Troubled Water. The leader's stratospheric-register brass chops are amply displayed throughout, and the talents of several other soloists, including Oshiro, tenor saxophonists Mark Gould and Tim Stamps, and alto saxophonist Tom Dietz, are showcased.
The Dan McMillion Jazz Orchestra plays at 8 p.m. Friday at the Largo Cultural Center, 105 Central Park Drive, Largo. Tickets are $18. For information, call the box office at (727) 587-6793.
- PHILIP BOOTH, Times Correspondent
[Last modified October 12, 2005, 10:18:06]
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