Peter Hand’s Refreshing New Big Band Sound

A mosaic of Peter Hand’s resources (from the album booklet)

At the end of this past August, Savant Records released a new album by the Peter Hand Big Band entitled Hand Painted Dream, led by guitarist Hand, who also provided all the arrangements. Most of the compositions are by Hand himself, including the title track, which gives Hand the opportunity to also perform as the group’s punster. However, Hand’s own compositions are presented in a context that honors four major jazz masters of the past.

The entire album is framed by two saxophone giants, opening with Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite” and concluding with a John Coltrane medley that joins “Mr. P.C.” together with “Cousin Mary.” There is also a Tadd Dameron track, “If You Could See Me Now,” which features vocalist Camille Thurman (who also joins the saxophone section for Hand’s “Calypsiana”), and Randy Weston’s “Berkshire Blues.” The band as a whole consists of a diverse wind section (five players on multiple instruments, along with Thurman on tenor saxophone), four trumpets, three trombones, and rhythm provided by piano, bass, and drums.

However, the title track heads off in its own distinctive direction, bringing in the Secret String Quartet of violinists Jennifer Choi and Cornelius Dufallo, violist Lev Zhurbin, and cellist Yves Dharamraj. Joshua Shneider conducts, and Don Braden, from the wind section, is featured on flute. This piece recalls the risks of the bad old days of the “third stream” movement, when a piece would begin in the domain of atonal chamber music but would eventually succumb to bopping away to a more familiar beat. Hand’s composition definitely avoids that pitfall with a clear sense of how the string quartet is a vital ingredient in the overall mix.

The flip side of that coin, however, is that none of the tracks really try to provoke. Rather, this is a clear and engaging account of how big band resources can still take innovative approaches to both new compositions and “jazz classics” of the last century. Hand knows how to deploy his resources in ways that endow each of the tracks with its own unique voice, including his guitar improvisation for his own “Once Upon a Time,” whose retrospection includes a reference to Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” (and probably several sources I have yet to identify). That present-meets-past approach to invention makes this album, as a whole, an engaging listening experience.