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Title: Holman Rides the Range
Review: Believe it or not, some of us as college students remember cutting our big band teeth on Bill Holman's incisive, baroque charts that somehow made their way into Stan Kenton's primarily Wagnerian book. A mainstay tenor saxophonist beginning in the 1950s, Holman is today among the 2-3 living legends among all jazz arrangers-composers. With veteran great players such as Pete Christlieb, Lanny Morgan and Bob Enevoldson along with potential future giants like Christian Jacob, Hommage is at once testimony to a vital tradition as well as a tribute to the valiant road warriors from the Duke and the Count to Kenton, Maynard, Rich and, above all, Woody. It's unlikely that we'll ever again see traveling Herds with bands of Brothers, but this exuberant, triumphant session gives us reason to hope that we haven't come to the last round-up.
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