Mike and Cedar in Bolivia

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has always been quite fond of pianist Cedar Walton's original composition Bolivia. In March 2002, Mike Abene arranged Cedar's tune for Holland's Metropole Orchestra, hence the title of this piece. The piano solo is by Hans Vromans, Leo Janssen does the honors on tenor saxophone and Mike conducts the orchestra which, once again, demonstrates how talented its strings players are at Jazz phrasing. With his arrangement, Mike essentially captures all the moods, human sensibilities and vistas reflected in th images of Bolivia as contained in the video. Mike and Cedar are in Bolivia in that their music complements and compliments these graphic representations of the country and its people.