The Michael Treni Big Band BOY’S NIGHT OUT. The Bell Production Company.
There are all kind of meanings to the phrase, “Boys Night Out,” but the one I like is “free to be with your friends.” So I’m going with that. Given too, that leader, trombonist Michael Treni, after a career in business, has put together an orchestra with 16 of his buddies, including sax legend Jerry Bergonzi only adds a breath of fresh air to the album.
It’s breezy, refreshing in a familiar mainstream big band way with it’s roots in Diz, Basie, and 70’s New York. Leonard Bernstein’s “Something Coming” gets the outing started with a richly orchestrated, almost baroque 8 minutes of music that has real style. Treni’s own loose and spacey “Boy’s Night Out” follows with some swinging brass backing relaxed solos by Sal Spicola on sax and the trumpet of Chris Persad. There is homage to Ellington in a piece called “Strayhorn” featuring Bergonzi’s tenor, and continues with Strayhorn’s U.M.M.G with more Bergonzi and some Charles Blenzig piano.
I totally know where I am in this boy’s night out with “Lullaby of Birdland”, but the closing tune, “Here’s That Rainy Day,” ups that ante: it lets me imagine I am slow dancing my best girl in front of Tommy Dorsey’s bandstand and he shifts tempo past foxtrot into patches of Latin. O yes. And then there’s more jazz for just listening. A great night out.