Interplay Jazz Orchestra, Bite Your Tongue Review

Canon as Framework: Interplay Jazz Orchestra’s Bite Your Tongue Big Band Statement

By Ferell Aubre

On Bite Your Tongue, Interplay Jazz Orchestra positions itself squarely within the lineage of the modern big band while making it clear that tradition is a living, working structure. Across nine tracks that draw from Johnny Griffin, Roy Hargrove, Cole Porter, Victor Young, Jule Styne, and the blues form itself, the ensemble treats the canon as active material. The result is an album that reinforces continuity through collective creative execution through performance and arrangement.

The record opens with Johnny Griffin’s “The Congregation,” arranged by Damien Pacheco, and immediately situates the band in hard-bop territory. The medium swing feel is grounded and direct, and the solo sequence of Damien Pacheco on trumpet, Brent Chiarello on trombone, James Miceli on alto saxophone, and Alejandro Aviles on tenor saxophone unfolds in language clearly rooted in bebop phrasing. The ensemble builds toward a shout chorus that modulates upward with conviction, reinforcing a classic big band arc of statement, individual expansion, and collective ascent. The gospel-inflected lift near the climax further anchors the chart in mid-century jazz vocabulary without diluting its contemporary precision.

That same respect for inherited language shapes the treatment of American Songbook material. “It’s Been a Long, Long Time,” arranged by Gary Henderson, preserves the melodic clarity and era-specific phrasing associated with its origins while adapting it to a modern swing context. John Marshall’s tenor saxophone and Chris Donohue’s alto saxophone trade phrases in a manner consistent with established big band conversation models of call, response, and escalation. This is all supported by gradually expanding ensemble backgrounds. The show-tune-style ending reinforces the composition’s theatrical roots without overstating them.

Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” receives a similarly lineage-aware reading. Chris Scarnato’s baritone saxophone establishes the opening thematic weight before Donohue’s alto saxophone shapes the melodic line with clean articulation and controlled swing phrasing. The harmonic framework remains intact, and the key changes at the close align with long-standing big band practice, using modulation to intensify arrival while preserving structural clarity.

Hard-bop continuity extends through Roy Hargrove’s “Strasbourg-St. Denis.” The descending blues-inflected melodic figure remains central, supported by a groove that reflects the composition’s late-20th-century lineage. Donohue’s alto saxophone and Baron Lewis’s trumpet articulate the harmonic structure with direct, post-bop phrasing, with a musical balance between rhythmic density and melodic economy. The brass layering reinforces sectional cohesion, keeping the form legible throughout.

The blues, in its most explicit form, arrives with “Blues for Adrian.” Here, tradition functions as a foundation rather than a reference. Miceli’s alto saxophone, Lewis’s trumpet, and Joey Devassy’s trombone move sequentially through the form, each engaging blues language with clear motivic development and disciplined phrase endings. Beneath them, bebop-informed background figures reinforce harmonic continuity without obscuring the solo lines. The structure remains orthodox; the ensemble execution is precise.

Even the title track, an original contrafact rooted in established harmonic practice, operates within tradition’s parameters. Pacheco’s trumpet and Marshall’s tenor saxophone articulate blues-informed melodic material within a straight-eight context that aligns modern rhythmic vocabulary with hard-bop sensibility. The rhythm section transitions between feels without disrupting formal integrity, preserving continuity within the lineage framework.

Throughout the album, the shout chorus appears as expressive architecture. Whether building through modulation or reinforcing harmonic direction near a chart’s close, these moments reflect codified big band practice. Sectional precision and dynamic control ensure that climaxes feel structurally earned. They are well-written and fully function as creative additions to the composition.

Equally significant is the collective model. Solo space rotates across trumpets, trombones, and saxophones without elevating a single dominant voice. This distribution reinforces a core principle of big band tradition: the ensemble as institution. Leadership guides direction, but identity resides in coordinated sectional interaction. The balance between brass and woodwinds remains consistent, allowing individual improvisers to operate within a stable orchestral framework.

Across Bite Your Tongue, Interplay Jazz Orchestra demonstrates that engaging the canon requires imagination and era awareness. Blues forms are articulated with clarity, hard-bop language spoken fluently, and Songbook material rendered with structural respect. Tradition, here, is neither ornamental nor rhetorical because it is executed with discipline.

For listeners attuned to big band lineage, this record affirms that the vocabulary remains durable. The language holds. And in the hands of a cohesive ensemble committed to collective precision, that language continues to evolve without severing its roots.