Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra – Ten – Water Baby Records WBR 1101 (Limited Edition) ***** [www.anthonybrown.org]:
Members of San Francisco’s Asian American creative music movement founded the Asian American Orchestra in 1997 with federal funding, in a project to provide community education about the WW II Japanese internment. Some of the Bay Area musicians involved in the project besides founded Anthony Brown have been Jon Jang, Mark Izu and Francis Wong. The orchestra was later expanded as part of the Big Bands project, and in 2000 garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance for their recording of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Far East Suite – from which three tracks are taken on this ten-year sampler CD.
Another of the band’s fine albums was 2002’s Monk’s Moods, from which again three selections are taken – two of them featuring guest soprano sax star Steve Lacy. The CD opens with music created in 2007 for a stage performance by San Francisco’s ACT theater titled After The War. Then four selections from the group’s 2005 album Rhapsodies – one of which quotes Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and another features guest bass clarinetist David Murray in Ellington’s glorious Come Sunday. The organization is currently known as Anthony Brown’s Orchestra, numbers 8 to 16 musicians, and continues to present music blending jazz traditions with Asian musical instruments and sensibilities.
TrackList: After the War Act II, Self Portrait in Three Colors (Mingus), Rhapsody in Blue excerpt (Gershwin), Come Sunday (Ellington), Anthem/Baile de la Orisha (Anthony Brown), After the War Interlude, Monk’s Mood, Misterioso (Monk), Hackensack (Monk), After the War Prelude L’amour, Isfahan (Strayhorn), Mount Harissa Prelude & Mount Harissa (Ellington), Rhymes for Children (Anthony Brown)
– John Henry
