Recommended: Big Pocket Orchestra – “Big Pocket Orchestra”

 

Everything about Big Pocket Orchestra is fun.   The septet that comprise the Big Pocket Orchestra run popular TV and movie themes through a traditional jazz lens, and I’ll be damned if every single one of them aren’t clever.  Opening the album with the 20th Century Fox theme gets the fun started.  Darth Vader’s voice intoning “I am your father” to a Latin Jazz version of the Star Wars theme is a highlight.  Also a highlight is how the theme to Peter Gunn shifts right into that of James Bond.  Harry Potter makes an appearance, as do the Flintstones.   However, the absolute gem of this delightful recording is the mash-up of the Paul Desmond-Dave Brubeck tune “Take Five” and the theme from Game of Thrones.  The transition between those two melodies, back and forth in the blink of an eye, is about the niftiest thing I’ve heard in a while.

Albums that do the movie-TV show thing can come off as trite.  Many times it’s nothing more than a popular melody wrapped in an empty suit of a song.  But Big Pocket Orchestra have created tunes that are enjoyable to listen to all on their own, and their contextual relationship to pop culture is simply an added bonus.  And, most importantly, they made it especially fun.

Your album personnel:  Melisa Bertossi (soprano sax), Matias Muñoz (keyboards), Sergio Lopez (drums, percussion), Alejandro Mazzoni (bass, double bass, guitar), Ale Ortega (trombones, accordion, guitar), Adriano Torregiani (saxophones, flute, harmonica) and Alberto Perez Jordana (trumpets, flugelhorn).

This album is Self-Produced.

Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Music from Barcelona, Spain.

Available at:  Bandcamp