The premise and the trombone performances were both cool. The performance could have been tighter but it was above the bar for what we're looking for, IMO, so that was good. I liked the soloing ideas over CV3's "Demon Seed" particularly from 4:03-4:53.
Many of the transitions (e.g. 1:10, 2:18, 4:53, 5:49) were too abrupt and made the medley incohesive; for the standards here, medleys should basically flow like a single track. Obviously, a few jumpy, disjointed transitions can happen, but there were too many here.
Obviously, this is meant to be a subdued piece with the focus on the leads. That said, the textures ended up sparse and the backing instrumentation doesn't really fill things out enough. Dynamically, this was pretty flat; no matter the source tune or rhythms, the energy level settled at middle of the road and stayed there.
It's interesting, but too flat over the long haul, IMO. The other Js can let me know if I'm being a grandpa; I like smoother jazz, I'm not against this style, I just don't think the soundscape is filled out enough, that the transitions are smooth, or that it's dynamic enough of a piece over the course of the 8 minutes. It can't easily be redone due to it being live and needing to assemble everyone, which is a shame, but that can't affect the vote.
NO