Peter Drew leads a hiply swinging and varied big band through a mix of his compositions as well as arrangements of jazz standards. Vocalists Wendy Gilles, Maria Maloney and Sachal Vasandani are mixed and matched with a team that includes Sam Sadigursky/cl, Jon Irabagon/fs-fl and Nick Finzer/tb. You get a swinging sax section along with Irabagon’s tenor and Sebastion’s sleek guitar on “Don’t Argue and hip traditional bop with a nice trumpet solo by Brandon Lee on Dizzy Gillespie’s “Retro-Bop.” The team does a nice salsa of “Carioca” with Samuel Torres’ sizzling percussion and the woodwinds wisp on Drew’s own “A Coda and a Score” and Irabagon oozes on the tenor for a languid “Blue Lester.”
Vasandani is rich with pianist Silvano Monasterios for “Midnight Sun,” Gilles teams with Sadigursy for a freewheeling “Slo Burn Blues” while soft with woody reeds on “Body and Soul” and Maloney gets cozy with Vasandany on a fun “Lesson Francaise.” Rich charts and warm hearts.