Daniel Ian Smith's full octet does something not easy to do. They play hip nubop charts with the mid-later Blue Note Renaissance attention to swing, finely rendered jazz composition/part writing and some very worthy solo work. That is on Breaking News (Big and Phat Jazz Productions 1022). They call themselves the New World Jazz Composers Octet.
Mark Walker is a very swinging drum cat and that sets the foundation for some very good doings. There are good soloists a plenty: Felipe Salles' and the leader's tenors, Tim Ray on piano, Ken Cervenka and/or Walter Platt on trumpets...And there are some very hip charts by Platt and Salles as well as Jeff Friedman, Matthew Nicholl, Richard Lowell and a three-part "Trilogy" by longtime Berklee presence Ted Pease.
This is their third album to date and it shows that they are a force of good for the state of the jazz world. And they can hit it. They do! Recommended.
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