Ronnie Cuber

Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Ronnie Cuber, WDR Big Band: Center Stage

by Jack Bowers
November 22, 2022

Mixed emotions must underline this review. Center Stage, featuring bassist Eddie Gomez, drummer Steve Gadd and baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber with Germany's superb WDR Big Band conducted by Michael Abene, was recorded in Cologne in January and February 2022. Sadly, Ronnie Cuber passed away in October, shortly after the album was released. If this was Cuber's last hurrah, it thunders loudly above the rooftops, as his solos (on each of the album's nine numbers) and melodic passages ...

Ronnie Cuber, Oscar Peterson, Stan Bock & Morgan Faw

by Joe Dimino
November 6, 2022

We begin the 775th Episode of Neon Jazz with Kansas City's native son and saxophonist Morgan Faw joined by his band The Flame with the song “Watson Family BBQ" off 2022 album It Takes a Village. From there, we pay tribute to baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber. As the episode unfolds, we discover interesting songs and stories from Beverley Church Hogan, Ezra Weiss and Tim Fitzgerald. In between, we hear legends Oscar Peterson and Wes Montgomery. It all comes to a ...

Ronnie Cuber: Live At Montmartre

by Chris Mosey
July 7, 2018

Of all the musical instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the mid-19th century, the baritone saxophone remains the least played. Harry Carney persuaded Duke Ellington to use the heavy, cumbersome instrument and it became a distinctive part of the band's sound. Others who have played the baritone saxophone include Cecil Payne, Pepper Adams, Serge Chaloff and--for reasons that remain obscure--Lisa Simpson (perhaps she welcomed the challenge). Gerry Mulligan and the Swede Lars Gullin gave the instrument a distinctive, laid-back, specifically ...

Ronnie Cuber: Infra-Rae: Ronnie Cuber Meets The Beets Brothers

by Raul d'Gama Rose
February 23, 2012

It is easy to forget an elder statesman such as the magisterial Ronnie Cuber, who continues to give commanding performances on his baritone saxophone. The absence of a sense of history clouds successive generations, who will honor young masters like Brian Landrus but forget the ancestors. The great tones from the bass end of the saxophone family would be nothing without men such as Harry Carney, Gerry Mulligan, Cecil Payne, Pepper Adams, and of course, Cuber. The saxophonist, who was ...

Tom Scott with Special Guest Phil Woods: Bebop United

by Michael P. Gladstone
May 11, 2006

The unblemished record of Pittsburgh's Mancheaster Craftsmen's Guild as a venue for recording jazz albums continues with the this new recording from Tom Scott with special guest Phil Woods. Scott has amassed a lengthy discography which has reflected high energy fusion, pop-soul and smooth jazz over the past two decades. His earlier years, however, found him playing strongly as a member of the Don Ellis and Oliver Nelson Big Bands.

In 1992, Scott returned to the mainstream with Born Again, ...

Tom Scott: Bebop United

by Jim Santella
February 25, 2006

For Bebop United Tom Scott convened a a group of veterans for a straight-ahead live auditorium performance in Pittsburgh. His cohesive ensemble interprets each selection with a comfortable groove and a lot of soul. Featuring Phil Woods on three numbers, the concert brings slow ballads and up-tempo romps to its audience convincingly. Trumpeter Randy Brecker and tenor saxophonist Scott provide much of the dialogue, each bringing a warm presence to the concert.

For “His Eyes, Her Eyes, soloists ...

Tom Scott: Bebop United

by John Kelman
February 23, 2006

He's had a multifaceted career in almost every imaginable area of jazz--not to mention working as a gun for hire on albums by singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Carole King. It's easy to forget that saxophonist Tom Scott actually started out as a jazz traditionalist. While his own albums have leaned more towards fusion and contemporary jazz, the early days of his career found Scott cutting his teeth on albums by Oliver Nelson, Don Ellis and Thelonious Monk.

So when ...

Ronnie Cuber (1941-2022)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 10, 2022

Ronnie Cuber, a saxophonist and flutist who primarily played the baritone and whose stampeding solo approach landed him in top big bands in the 1960s and '70s and leading jazz, rock, pop, Latin, funk and soul orchestras and combos in the 1980s and beyond, including the Saturday Night Live band, died October 7. He was 80. Ronnie died in his studio on New York's Upper West Side after suffering from internal injuries related to a fall near his home in ...
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Ronnie Cuber on Maynard (PT. 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 2, 2011

Ronnie Cuber comes out of the Harry Carney and Pepper Adams school of blowing. He corkscrews into a song on the baritone saxophone and then works it over with an aggressive attack, feeding into the instrument's deep, barrel feel. Ronnie began in the Newport Youth Band and moved on to Slide Hampton's band and then Maynard Ferguson's while he was still in his early '20s. After leaving Maynard Ferguson's band in 1965, Ronnie recorded steadily, bringing enormous life and energy ...
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Ronnie Cuber on Maynard (PT. 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 1, 2011

Ronnie Cuber is a baritone saxophonist with a beefy sound who came up through the big bands of the 1960s. During this problematic big band era, rock and soul put the squeeze on orchestras' abilities to earn a profit. Yet top-name leaders still managed to tour and record, in many cases by arranging rock and soul hits and, by decade's end, incorporating jazz-rock fusion into their books. Ronnie had the good fortune to play in Maynard Ferguson's band from 1963 ...
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