Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Credit: Ben Knabe for hr
Credit: Ben Knabe for hr
Credit: Tracy Yang
Credit: Tracy Yang
Credit: Luis Godinho
Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
WITH EVERY BREATH I TAKE
The best new jazz albums: Editor’s Choice
“Immediately announces itself as a Desert Island Disc. With 10 songs reimagined reimagined in lush new arrangements by Darcy James Argue, it’s one of the most hauntingly beautiful things you'll hear this year.”
Peter Quinn | Jazzwise
‘With Every Breath I Take’ Review: Cécile McLorin Salvant Sings With Strings
“Succeeds—soars—on the strength of her connections with Mr. Fortner and his trio mates […], the flexibility and grace of the Metropole Orkest […], and, above all else, Darcy James Argue’s subtly inventive arrangements. […] belongs in the catalog of great jazz singers performing ballads with strings.”
Larry Blumenfeld | The Wall Street Journal
What’s New in Jazz
“With Every Breath I Take carries a vintage category — the orchestral ballad album — to an ethereal extreme. The tempos are slow and slower, demanding subtle breath control, and Darcy James Argue’s arrangements for the Metropole Orkest become partners in a spectral dialogue.”
Jon Pareles | The New York Times
Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Breathtaking Orchestral Album
“A grandiose showcase for her voice and her ability to inhabit a lyric… it all flows together as a suite and creates a single emotional journey.”
Phil Freeman | Stereogum
TOP PICK
“Stunningly beautiful… With Every Breath I Take is an album that will be considered one of the great vocalist/orchestra albums of all time.”
Craig L. Byrd | The Cultural Attaché
DYNAMIC MAXIMUM TENSION
TOP 10 JAZZ ALBUM OF THE YEAR
“The composer and bandleader serves as one of the driving forces behind new generations of ambitious large ensemble instrumental music. Dynamic Maximum Tension serves as proof.”
DownBeat
The 50 Best Albums of 2023
“Dynamic Maximum Tension, his most expansive and ambitious statement with the band, practically explodes with big ideas […] a double album that reinvigorates the big-band tradition with a modern metabolism.”
Nate Chinen | NPR
THE BEST JAZZ ALBUMS OF 2023
“One of the era’s top big-band composers […] this, his fourth album, is his best to date: a work of stunning eclecticism and complexity, but thoroughly accessible, elastic with swing.”
Fred Kaplan | Slate
The 10 Best Jazz Albums Of 2023
“Simply some of the most exciting music being made right now. […] Argue’s music shifts and whirls like an entire galaxy in orbit around itself, and it’s breathtaking to listen to. I love this record.”
Phil Freeman | Stereogum
Standout jazz albums of 2023 came from rising young talents and legends alike
“It may be a stretch to say this Vancouver-bred composer and band leader has singlehandedly reinvented big-band music. But not by much, as this dazzling, unfailingly creative album vividly attests.”
George Varga | The San Diego Union-Tribune
12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear
“Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is an 18-piece big band that stokes suspense with dissonance and pinpoint timing.”
Jon Pareles | The New York Times
The 17 Best Jazz Albums of 2023
“The title Dynamic Maximum Tension could be a review, as the music is in constant flux […] as different voices and sonorities weave, bob, and vie for attention. Argue has a crack band of long-standing and a sensibility that is his own. Every time he releases something new, ears should go on alert.”
Will Layman | PopMatters
The Best 30 Jazz Albums of 2023
“A celebration of big band magnificence, characterized by sterling layering taste, solid movements, and expertly seamless passages."
Filipe Freitas | JazzTrail
BEST SONGS OF 2023
“Mae West, the original bad bitch of Hollywood, is the inspiration for this lascivious big band number […]. Cécile McLorin Salvant purrs one-liners as Ingrid Jensen’s trumpet sashays over a lush arrangement.”
Lars Gotrich | NPR
Argue’s Secret Society produces “Maximum Tension” on a lively new album
“Listening to Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, I’m impressed by the music’s clarity, textural contrast, and shiny surfaces, his ingenuity and lively rhythms, impeccable ensemble playing, and fine soloists.”
Kevin Whitehead | Fresh Air
Ottawa Jazz Festival: First weekend featured joy-filled funk, esoteric sounds
“Friday’s fully packed studio show by Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society was as enthralling as it was fabulously complex […] a set of heady, sprawling compositions that, for all of their unexpected sounds, textures and intellectual rigor, connected with listeners. This is a brilliant and significant artist who is lighting the way for ambitious, large-scale jazz to come.”
Peter Hum | Ottawa Citizen
Darcy James Argue’s Walk Through History
“Like Buckminster Fuller’s geometric images, Argue’s streamlined use of space and motion (spinning horns, percussive thrust) incites the imagination.”
Suzanne Lorge | DownBeat
The Best Jazz on Bandcamp, September 2023
“There’s a legitimate argument to be made that no musician has had a greater influence on modern big band jazz than Darcy James Argue.”
Dave Sumner | Bandcamp Daily
5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right now
“Darcy James Argue is one of the great living composers for chamber orchestra.”
Seth Colter Walls | The New York Times
New Music
“Argue represents the very peak of innovative current big band possibilities…. This is seriously terrific jazz… an extraordinary album: one of the best of the year.”
★★★★★
Keith Black | Winnipeg Free Press
DYNAMIC MAXIMUM TENSION REVIEW
“Wildly inventive… Argue brings together a bevy of adept instrumentalists and improvisers to bring his rhythmically kinetic, harmonically vibrant works to life.”
★★★★★
Matt Collar | AllMusic
December 2023 Jazz Record Reviews
“Argue's concept of big band jazz is extroverted, intricate, historically grounded, and forward-looking. He loves to unleash explosive forces. His band roars. […] one of the essential large ensemble jazz recordings of the new millennium.”
★★★★½
Thomas Conrad | Stereophile
Editors’ Picks
“Each track on this new double disc from Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society stands as a marvel of musical architecture, a self-contained miniverse populated by conspiring ensemble players and ace soloists.”
★★★★½
Ed Enwright | DownBeat
REVIEW: Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, Dynamic Maximum Tension
“A heady elixir of the past, the present and an imagined future, it maintains a right to surprise. And does.”
★★★★
Stuart Nicholson | Jazzwise
Album Review: Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, Dynamic Maximum Tension
“From the tensile strength of the first chord of ‘Dymaxion’ to the dark growling power of ‘Ferromagnetic’ and the final word of ‘Mae West,‘ Dynamic Maximum Tension is a delight.”
★★★★
Katchie Cartwright I All About Jazz
JAZZ COLLECTOR
“Superlative… brimming with a sonic invention that is redolent of Lalo Schifrin’s funky movie scores.”
★★★★
Charles Waring | Record Collector
Album Review: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Dynamic Maximum Tension
“A splendid example of Argue's creative abilities, Dynamic Maximum Tension has the merit of bringing together the different facets and expressive richness of his latest compositions.”
★★★★
Angelo Leonardi | All About Jazz (Italian)
Review: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Dynamic Maximum Tension
“A rich mix of dark sax improv, punchy soaring-brass riffing and seductive Gil Evans-worthy high-reeds dreamscapes.”
John Fordham | The Guardian
Album REVIEW: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Dynamic Maximum Tension
“Remarkable in its ambition, scope and sheer length, this is Argue’s crowning achievement to date.”
Keith Hoffman | The New York City Jazz Record
Darcy James Argue’s new album, Dynamic Maximum Tension
“Dynamic Maximum Tension was worth the wait. Despite its heady volume of historical information, it’s kinetic, gripping and modern — with a bounty of harmonic richness to boot.”
Morgan Enos | London Jazz News
Jazz New Release Round-Up
“Its dynamic range and flavours are wonderfully interspersed, whilst Cécile McLorin Salvant’s appearance on closer ‘Mae West: Advice’ is a cheeky moment of pure bliss.”
Barney Whittaker | Presto Music
Tension and release
“Outstanding album of completely modern music whose precision — whether of conception or execution — never excludes the human component.”
Richard Williams | The Blue Moment