Worth the Wait

If a jazz concert calls for co-leaders who have big-band credentials, drummer Peter Erskine and trumpeter Tim Hagans are both well qualified for the job. Erskine's résumé includes experience in the orchestras of Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson, while Hagans' big-band experience includes Kenton, Woody Herman, the Danish Radio Big Band (under Thad Jones' direction), and Maria Schneider. Neither have played with big bands exclusively by any means, but both of them have demonstrated that they are comfortable in both a small-group environment and a big-band environment — and they certainly sound like they are enjoying themselves on Worth the Wait. Recorded live in Luleå, Sweden, in 2006, this 68-minute CD finds co-leaders Erskine and Hagans (who serves as the concert's conductor) joining forces with Sweden's Norrbotten Big Band. Between Erskine, Hagans, and Norrbotten, there are 18 musicians on board; however, the soloists have plenty of room to stretch out. Big-band concerts, by their very nature, require a strong sense of teamwork, but that doesn't prevent the soloists on this post-bop/hard bop disc (who include Erskine, Hagans, tenor saxophonist Mats Garberg, and alto saxophonist Håkan Broström) from sounding uninhibited. Broström, for example, seriously digs into Hagans' modal offering "First Jazz." Quite often, big bands are stereotyped as predictable outfits that are obligated to embrace Buddy Rich-type arrangements and play a lot of overdone Tin Pan Alley warhorses. But there are no warhorses on Worth the Wait; all of the material performed was composed by either Erskine or Hagans. Worth the Wait is a solid document of Erskine's 2006 encounter with Hagans and Norrbotten in Sweden.