With April and The Manhattan EP we have snapshot of the current Boston/New York contemporary big band scene. April, funded by a Kickstarter campaign, by the South Korean composer and arranger Jihye Lee, a former student at the Berklee College of Music, (currently studying at the Manhattan School of Music) is programmatic in scope, a reimagining of the night of 16 April 2014 when tragedy struck South Korea when the ferry Sewol sank with the loss of more than 300 passengers. Not the most cheerful subject matter for an album I grant you, but there is enough musically here to suggest a composer/arranger of considerable potential. ‘April Wind’ sets the scene with the calm before the storm, with Lee writing her voice within the woodwinds to produce light, floating tone colours. However, on pieces like ‘Guilty’ and ‘Whirlwind’ her use of dissonance is somewhat relentless, ultimately detracting from the piece's programmatic purpose. Overuse of dissonance in a big band can be a bit of a blunt instrument, and once the programmatic point of suffering and pain is made it's time to move on as it detracts from the overall effect of the suite. ‘You Are Here (Every Time I Think of You) is more considered, well-structured and written with melodic flair. It is here her strength as a writer lies, something she attributes to her South Korean heritage, in Korean han meaning a sense of deep restrained emotion rooted in the country's long history of war and colonisation. In contrast, the Australian Myles Wright is perhaps more heterogeneous and outgoing in his writing. He is also an avid fan of photography so the 22 minute 20 second, four tune ‘EP’ is accompanied by a DVD of the session. The music is well arranged and conceived and often original, breaking down phrases to their rhythmic core as a means of effective contrast to antiphonal passages. The drummer, Aaron Kimmel, is somewhat over recorded, at the front of the mix rather than behind, and subscribes to the now fashionable tendency of tuning the snare to sound like a rimshot which make the first two pieces sound as if they were recorded on a firing range. He's good, but does not warrant the kind of scrutiny his position in the mix affords him. Both Jihye and Wright demonstrate a good appreciation of the function of the soloist within a larger ensemble. They don't let them wander off to follow their own private muse, but use them to serve the expressive ends of their writing. Together, in their different ways, Lee and Wright show that almost a century after Paul Whiteman formed his orchestra, the larger ensemble, in the right hands, still has plenty to say.