Metropole Orkest: Arakatak
Metropole is the long-established Netherlands juggernaut jazz orchestra and, almost by definition, a minimalist composer’s nightmare in which the claims of a toy piano might suddenly be confronted by the roar of a Cavaillé-Coll organ. It has 50 permanent musicians – a melding of jazz and symphonic instrumentation – but is no stranger to subtlety, history, or contemporary popularity, having paid homage live to the music of Charles Mingus and Nina Simone, and made two albums with Snarky Puppy. On its latest album, though, it goes alone to celebrate, under the astute direction of Miho Hazama, an incredible 80th anniversary.
The celebration provides an excuse to salute associated luminaries, such as former chief conductor Vince Mendoza, and bring forward compositions by its star players. The title chart is by French-horn player Morris Kliphuis, and there are compositions by, among others, saxophonists Tineke Postma and Donny McCaslin, drummer Mark Guiliana and pianist Shai Maestro. Almost everywhere, though, floats the feeling that a non-minimalist composer might well regard that subtlety, history and popularity as repositories of possibilities gone begging.
McCaslin’s Luminosity, for example, amounts to little more than high-grade film music without the film. It inhabits driftsville, where nothing happens except time passing, or, in this case, orchestral longueurs barely enlivened by a timid rock beat and a final wake-up call, the irony of which is probably lost. Guiliana’s The Most Important Question suggests that the most important question is what its perky woodwinds, elaborate drumming, anthemic tumult and Morse coda (sorry about that!) amount to beyond the descriptively cinematic.
Maybe what does matter about multi-instrumentalist Louis Coles’s Doesn’t Matter, which closes the album, is whether or not its echoes of an English rhapsody for strings by Michael Tippett out of Gerald Finzi and Vaughan Williams is jazz. Well, it ain’t. That’s the trouble with musical fusions: lots of imprisoned genres are often trying to abscond, having made no obvious truck with their partners.
Discography
Arakatak; Bright Lights And Jubilations; Luminosity; Splash The Colours; Into The Dawn Of Light; The Most Important Question; Crown Jewels; Doesn’t Matter (56.00)
Miho Hazama (cond); Marc Scholten, Paul van der Feen (s); Nico Schepers, Rik Mol (t); Jan Bastiani (tb); Fons Verspaandonk (frh); Peter Tiehuis (g); Hans Vromans (p); Martijn Vink (d); Arend Liefkes (b); Joke Schonewille (hp); Hieke Dam, Iris Schut, Emile Visser (strings); and many others. No recording details.
V2 Records
Gianmarco Ferri: Sweet And Lovely
My erstwhile colleague Derek Ansell’s verdict on Italian guitarist Gianmarco Ferri’s 2024 album On The Scene might be applied to his latest. The only difference is that, two years ago, American pianist Dave Kikoski was added to the Ferri trio for a mixture of standards and Ferri originals in a muted hard-bop style. Ansell concluded that the album contained nothing wildly innovative but was a “good, relaxed all-round mainstream” set, which is exactly what Sweet And Lovely is. Drummer Luca Santaniello is retained from 2024 and the American link is carried on with Doug Weiss replacing bassist Stefano Battaglia.
The standards include These Foolish Things, I Hear A Rhapsody, and the title chart. Interest picks up when the trio sets sail with Ferri’s compositions, which comprise the final four tracks. Weiss had already established a commanding presence and continues to the end with uncompromising, Ray Brown-like drive and lively solos. From the start, the close recording benefits everyone, not least Santaniello, who is up there with Weiss in offering some contrast to Ferri’s sometimes super-cool peregrinations. But the guitarist makes Oliver Nelson’s Butch And Butch and others swing, and plays a mean ballad on his You Missed The Turn.
I agree with Ansell that Ferri is “somewhat” under the influence of Wes Montgomery. But what post-bop guitarist intent on travelling at pace isn’t?
Discography
These Foolish Things; Sweet And Lovely; Butch And Butch; I Hear A Rhapsody; Friends; You Missed The Turn; Niño; Laying It Down (44.25)
Ferri (g); Doug Weiss (b); Luca Santaniello (d). Civitavecchia, 25 October 2025.
WoW Records WJO124
Albert Marquès & Rachel Therrien: Dialogue Vol. II
Did Chronograph Records appreciate the significance of its second album featuring American trumpeter Rachel Therrien and pianist Albert Marquès? Only a few bars of the duo’s opening performance of Watermelon Man are required to raise the historical relevance of what they are doing: casting back to the Hines-Armstrong partnership with a mixture of jazz standards and reminding us that such a tie-up has more contemporary form, notably in Oscar Peterson’s collaborations with, among others, Clark Terry, Harry Edison and Dizzy Gillespie; Chet Baker’s with Paul Bley; and the modern masters of Fujii and Tamura.
The generosity of spirit in performing 13 charts is reflected in the music’s joyous spontaneity. Marquès’s Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Spanish-tinged Formentera and Therrien’s nostalgic Papa are the only originals in what is an extended and extensive homage to the enduring melodies of modern jazz: A Night In Tunisia, Yesterdays, Caravan, All Blues, My Funny Valentine.
The example of Peterson is especially relevant in considering Marquès’s virtuosity. He finds and fills the space which is Therrien’s sonic ambience. Rarely has a pair of conjoined jazz musicians had such fun in leading those melodies into places their composers may have thought inimical.
There’s a quixotic element to the couple’s approach. Consider the lapse into stride in an otherwise florid piano commentary on I Mean You; the gauze through which On Green Dolphin Street is first perceived before asserting itself; the piano intro to A Night In Tunisia that captures its personality without distorting its shape; the trumpet’s maintenance of line and rhythm on Caravan to which the piano subscribes, adding a walking bass to its later stages; the carnival atmosphere of La Cucaracha that’s postponed to the very end after Therrien, a noted Latin brass player, mutes the atmosphere to the level of meditative gravity.
This pair take well-known tunes on the journey of their lives, with every confidence that they will benefit from fresh surroundings and return in good nick.
Discography
Watermelon Man; On Green Dolphin Street; I Mean You; Papa; A Night In Tunisia; Yesterdays; Formentera; Caravan; La Cucaracha; All Blues; Abraham Lincoln Brigade; My Funny Valentine; Solar (59.15)
Marquès (p); Therrien (t). New York, October 2022.
Chronograph Records CR-128
