Inferno
Blue Engine
Jazz to Hell with Inferno, a six-movement composition by JLCO member and alto saxman Sherman Irby (a native of Tuscaloosa). Based on the first part of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the piece tracks its hero’s allegorical descent from earth—which sounds a lot like New Orleans—into the ninth circle of Hell, which sounds even more like New Orleans. If you’ve read Inferno, you’ll appreciate the affinity between Dante’s vivid, often brutally ironic evocation of damnation, and raunchy Crescent City-style jazz. It’s pretty damn good.
– Bruce Collier
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