By Michael J. West | Published October 2025
Oh, man, does Ed Partyka know the big band tradition backwards and forwards. He’d just about have to, as a protégé of large ensemble virtuoso Bob Brookmeyer (whose 1981 album Composer–Arranger gives Partyka’s record its title). Indeed, the epic opener “Do As I Say … (Not As I Do),” a Partyka original, wears the Brookmeyer influence — and perhaps that of another Brookmeyer protégé, Darcy James Argue — proudly on its sleeve.
A lesser craftsman would make that his manifesto and the mold for the entire album’s worth of material. But Partyka, born and raised in Chicago but now resident in Graz, Austria, has too much range, and too many high-caliber collaborators (17 great players from across Europe), to let it go at that. He immediately offsets “Do As I Say” with an enchanting, breezy Latin orchestration of Charlie Parker’s “Klactoveedsedstene” that shows how deeply he knows his stuff. At times it sounds just a Freddie Green guitar line away from the Count Basie New Testament Band (Partyka has no guitarist), at times like the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra (with a Simon Harrer trombone solo that might itself be a homage to Brookmeyer’s seat in that ensemble).
Neither is Partyka a slavish disciple, even on a tribute album. His arrangement of “Dienda,” despite its being a Kenny Kirkland tune, simply sounds like Ed Partyka, especially in his use of brass — both in solos (there’s a heavenly French horn one, courtesy of Swiss player Linus Bernoulli) and in backgrounds (with flugelhorn and trombone spinning a beguiling contrapuntal web behind Florian Trübsbach’s alto solo). His closing original showpiece “G.G.’s Last Dance” uses those same brass chops to construct a careful slow-burn, climaxing in another Harrer trombone solo before creeping, with almost unbearably tension, to a resolve. More, please.
