The Tommy Vig Orchestra featuring David Murray: Welcome to Hungary ! (2012)
Tommy Vig and David Murray are the real deal! Welcome to Hungary ! is a Bags and Trane collaboration configured for the 21st century. Tommy Vig’s Orchestra is truly outstanding on all fronts, and his arrangements are, of course, nothing less than top-notch. The highlight of the album is the constant interaction and interplay of Tommy Vig’s vibes and David Murray’s halting tenor saxophone. David Murray is the true heir to the late John Coltrane’s avant-garde tenor saxophone technique and concept, and Tommy Vig is mindful of his playing up and down the horn throughout the entire album. He has composed and arranged precisely to suite his guest soloist’s ecstatic tenor saxophone playing. David Murray’s non-stop stretches up-and-down the tenor saxophone are completely synchronized with Tommy Vig’s Orchestra. Tommy Vig's arrangements are incredibly tight; you can feel the band’s pulse throughout each track of the album, with each instrumentalists being completely in-line with the other. David Murray’s extended technique provides a harmony-in-itself, and Tommy Vig realizes the full effects of this, hence the need for his Orchestra to provide a more focused energy that would give Murray the space to stretch out. Murray plays the tenor saxophone with Tommy Vig’s Orchestra in the same spirit as tenor-man John Gilmore did with the Sun Ra Arkestra during the golden age of jazz.
Dustin Garlitz - October 2011
JazzTalent.com