The Jackson Combo Jazz

Two players or eight: The Jackson Combo Jazz scale to the room. The smaller line-ups play cool jazz, the kind that suits a cocktail hour or a dinner where you still want conversation. From five players up, they become a small big band, with the option of a female vocalist, a brassy horn section, or both. The songbook leans on the great jazz singers, so expect material associated with Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Lou Rawls, Joe Williams and Mel Tormé. They play it in a New York style, moving through swing, bebop, cool blues, New Orleans and Latin rhythms.