JAZZ REVIEW : Soloists Buoy Maiden Voyage

Ann Patterson’s ensemble Maiden Voyage is unique in the annals of jazz: 16 gifted women playing challenging charts, with an array of soloists that has never been stronger in the band’s 13-year history.

By now you expect--and hear--superlative solos from Stacy Rowles on fluegelhorn and you know that Betty O’Hara may be the world’s only jazz exponent of the double-bell euphonium. But several surprises emerged during their performance at the Moonlight Tango in Sherman Oaks on Tuesday night: the pistol-whip incisiveness of Kathy Rubbicco’s piano; Linda Small’s bass trombone in Rubbicco’s “Uptown New York”; a Nan Schwartz arrangement of “All Blues”; Patterson on alto in Sam Nestico’s version of “Fascinating Rhythm,” and a mordantly impassioned alto outburst by Jennifer Hall in “Takin’ a Walk,” a Roger Neumann original.

Underpinning the tightly unified ensemble were Jennifer York on bass and Jeanette Wrate on drums, rounding out a rhythm team that has few equals anywhere, regardless of gender.

For good measure, the Cunninghams’ vocal duo ended the set with an entertaining Duke Ellington medley, teaming wildly with the band in a climactic ride aboard the A-train.