# CD review: Jean Fineberg & Jazzphoria 2022: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/05/05/cd-review-jean-fineberg-jazzphoria-2022-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2022-05-05T03:23:37+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**JAZZphoria is a contemporary octet based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their 
material ranges from swing and blues to funk, R&B, hip hop, bebop and New Orleans
second line. The tight four-member horn section and grooving rhythm section replicate
the arrangements and power of a Jazz Orchestra, while presenting a fun and exciting
live show. Leader Jean Fineberg wrote all the tunes at her nine music composition
residency fellowships areound the US, and guitarist Nancy Wenstrom contributed one
tune.**

Saxophonist Jean Fineberg brings her four-horn octet to the stage to feature tunes
from the new album that will be released in April 2022. They call the music “groove
beat” because it’s all about the rhythm! Jean’s original tunes/arrangements cover
swing, bebop, funk, R&B, New Orleans Second Line, jazz waltz, reggae and the kitchen
sink.

_JAZZ_ phoria is a contemporary original music octet led by saxophonist/composer
Jean Fineberg. Danceable rhythms are the backbone of the group’s all-original repertoire,
which includes swing, bebop, funk, R&B, New Orleans Second Line, reggae and the 
kitchen sink. _JAZZ_ phoria is fueled by veteran musicians who have performed and/
or recorded with Melba Liston, Larry Elgart, David Bowie, Laura Nyro, Cornell Dupree,
Andrea Bocelli, Mo’fone, The Montclair Women’s Big Band and many others. Jean Fineberg
is a recipient of nine composer-in-residence fellowships, two grants from the NEA,
multiple grants from Meet the Composer, The American Federation of Musicians, Chamber
Music America, the Doris Duke Foundation and IntermusicSF. Her compositions have
been performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, The San Jose Jazz Festival, Carnegie
Hall, The Grammys and the Kennedy Center. The ensemble’s name refers to the ethereal
moment when everyone is in sync and “in the zone.”

Tenor saxophonist-flutist Jean Fineberg puts the icing on the cake of a 50-year 
career with the April 8 release of Jean Fineberg & JAZZphoria on her Pivotal Records
imprint. While the album is her first under her own name, Fineberg is anything but
a newcomer to the music world: She has since the early 1970s been building up a 
jaw-dropping body of accomplishments that includes rock and fusion bands, session
work on pop hits, and touring with jazz, salsa, and singer-songwriter icons. Many
of those accomplishments are reflected in her debut album, which places her at the
front of an octet (the JAZZphoria of the title) with baritone saxophonist-bass clarinetist
Carolyn Walter, keyboardist-flutist Erika Oba, trumpeters Marina Garza and Tiffany
Carrico, guitarist Nancy Wenstrom, bassist Susanne DiVincenzo, and drummer Lance
Dresser, plus special guests.

Much of JAZZphoria’s personnel overlaps with the Montclair Women’s Big Band, the
celebrated Bay Area ensemble of which Fineberg has been assistant director and resident
composer since 1997. She wanted to concentrate the 17-piece band’s creative force
into a streamlined, four-horn powerhouse. “I wanted a team atmosphere,” she adds
regarding her strategy. “We have that in the big band, as well as in JAZZphoria.…
However, we do have a man on drums, so we’re not one of those single-gender bands!”

It’s not really a single-genre band either, despite the obvious jazz context. Fineberg
leads JAZZphoria through a wild variety of sounds and styles. The opening “Bluesworthy”
is classic big-band swing, while “Unfinished Business” is a sly tango. “Dive Bar”
is a stinging guitar-led blues. “Raw Bar,” though it uses a Middle Eastern harmonic
language, harks back to the fusion band DEUCE, which Fineberg co-led in the 1980s.

“I don’t want all my music to sound the same,” Fineberg says. “I’m too interested
in different things.”

The album’s wide range of musical flavors gets a boost from its equally wide range
of soloists. Each of the band’s eight core members gets moments in the spotlight(
and on multiple instruments, in the cases of Fineberg, Oba, and Walter). So do their
guests. Jennifer Jolly takes a muscular piano turn on the New Orleans groover “More
Funner”; percussionist Michaelle Goerlitz brings zesty energy to “St. Mildred the
Short’s” calypso; Ariane Cap doubles down on the bluesy “Live at the Buck Snort 
Saloon” with her driving slap-bass; and Ellen Seeling—Fineberg’s directing partner
in the MWBB—delivers a gorgeous, sultry trumpet line on Nancy Wenstrom’s “Unfinished
Business.”

In short, Jean Fineberg & JAZZphoria is the sound of not just one, but a whole array
of highly accomplished and versatile talents. Even so, it is Fineberg, who, in addition
to leading the band, composed all but one of the tunes and arranged the whole album,
whose vision is at the album’s heart.

Born April 1, 1946 in the Bronx and raised in nearby New Rochelle, Jean Fineberg
knew she was a musician from early childhood. She began studying piano at 6 and 
violin at 9 before discovering the flute at 11. She also dabbled in drums and guitar
as a teenager, then eventually began to study tenor saxophone, which became her 
main instrument. She took it and the flute with her to Pennsylvania State University,
where she earned two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s in succession.

In 1972, Fineberg became a founding member of Isis, an all-female jazz-rock band
based in Manhattan. While the band never achieved major commercial success, it won
positive notices and opened doors for Fineberg on the New York music scene. Along
with Isis’s three albums, she played on dozens of recordings across the 1970s and’
80s, including smash hits by David Bowie, Sister Sledge, and Chic as well as the
Brecker Brothers horn section. She toured with Laura Nyro and jazz trombonist-bandleader
Melba Liston and performed with Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry at Carnegie Hall.
In the mid-’80s, Fineberg co-founded (with Ellen Seeling) the fusion band DEUCE,
which became a staple of jazz festivals and recorded two albums of her original 
music.

Settling in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fineberg reestablished herself in the 1990s
as a first-call West Coast musician before joining Seeling’s newly established Montclair
Women’s Big Band in 1997. In the 25 years since, it has been her primary outlet,
both in the reed section and as the band’s primary composer and arranger. The superlative
musicianship she encountered in the band was the catalyst for Jean Fineberg & JAZZphoria,
Fineberg’s long-in-the-making debut as name-above-the-title bandleader.

Fineberg is on the faculty of the Jazzschool at the California Jazz Conservatory
in Berkeley, where she directs annual Jazz & Blues Camps for women and girls (“my
way of trying to pay it forward”). On the extramusical front, she has published 
her poetry in more than 20 journals; her new collection is A Mobius Path (Finishing
Line Press).

1. Bluesworthy
 2. Synesthesia 3. Raw Bar 4. Hemiology 5. Unfinished Business 6.
More Funner 7. Key Westing 8. St. Mildred the Short 9. Dive Bar 10. Away with Words
11. Live at the Buck Snort Saloon

**Tenor sax/flute – Jean Fineberg**
 **Bari sax/flute – Carolyn Walter** **Trumpet/
flugelhorn – Tiffany Carrico, Marina Garza** **Guitar – Nancy Wenstrom** **Keys/
flute/piccolo – Erika Oba, Jennifer Jolly** **Bass – Susanne DiVicenzo, Ariane Cap,
Jodi Durst** **Drums – Lance Dresser, Jeremy Steinkoler**

![](https://i0.wp.com/jazzblues.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/JEAN-FINEBERG-JAZZPHORIA.
jpg?resize=640%2C640&ssl=1)

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