The City Rhythm Orchestra Holiday Show @ Birdland - New York City Article

City Rhythm Orchestra
The City Rhythm Orchestra Holiday Show
Birdland
315 W 44th Street, (212) 581-3080
Sunday, December 1

Sometimes there seem to be two flavors of contemporary jazz orchestras; some exist to serve as the vehicles for specific composers, like Maria Schneider, who are creating a new kind of jazz-based concert music, which may be beautiful - in fact it is beautiful - but you’re not supposed to dance to it. Then there are those like the City Rhythm Orchestra (the city being Philadelphia) who are at once up to date but firmly rooted in the music's long heritage of social dancing. Led by saxophonists Pete Spina and Nick Vallerio, and featuring baritone Steve Ritrovato, the group has a bright, vibrant and exciting sound, full of fascinating orchestral colors (particularly on their "City Rhythm Cha Cha," which to me has something of a middle eastern sound atop a rhumba beat). While some big bands worship at the shrine of Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey, the CRO - as on its excellent 2004 album, Vibrant Tones - most gloriously celebrates the vibrant legacy of 1960s Soul Jazz and Hard Bop, particularly the writing of Horace Silver, Oliver Nelson, and, in their ongoing collaboration with Hammond organ colossus Joey DeFrancesco, Nelson’s classic albums with Jimmy Smith. Just in time for the start of the 2019 Christmas season, the orchestra returns this Sunday to Birdland for “The City Rhythm Orchestra Holiday Show” - I haven’t heard the program yet, but I’m looking forward to a soulful and swinging evening of classic seasonal sounds - and I know for a fact they’re the only band around town doing Louis Armstrong’s “Christmas in New Orleans” and reconfigures “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” in the template of Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife.” (“Look out, old Santa is back!”)

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