A Prayer for Lester Bowie CD (Greenleaf Music)

David Sanford, New York-based composer, arranger, and trombonist, presents his expansive vision of large ensemble jazz in "A Prayer for Lester Bowie." Released in 2021, this album features a lineup including trumpeter Hugh Ragin, whose title-track composition serves as the thematic centerpiece. Sanford's dynamic arrangements draw from influences ranging from Charles Mingus to avant-garde experimentation. The album is a mix of straight-ahead jazz, avant-garde pieces reminiscent of Lester Bowie's work with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. This big-band salute to the iconic Art Ensemble trumpeter that's filled with its subject's playful stylistic traits, all expressed within the context of original compositions rather than pieces from Bowie's oeuvre. David Sanford is the composer of most of the disc with the exception of the title track which is from the pen of guest conductor Hugh Ragin and a Dizzy Gillespie cover.