Fanfare & Fiesta is an album by the Hugh Ragin Trumpet Ensemble, led by trumpeter Ragin, and featuring guest artist Clark Terry on flugelhorn and vocals, along with trumpeters Dontae Winslow, James Zollar, and Omar Kabir, pianist Craig Taborn, bassist Jaribu Shahid, and drummer Bruce Cox. It was recorded on June 18 and 19, 2000, at Sound on Sound Studios in New York City, and was released in 2001 by Justin Time Records.[1][2][3][4]
In a review for AllMusic, Glenn Astarita wrote: "Ragin and co. interrogate blues-based themes amid emphatic choruses, torrid soloing, slight injections of free jazz, and climactic opuses. Fanfare & Fiesta is an audacious and refreshing exposition, supplemented by memorable compositions and the ensemble's often dazzling interplay. Recommended!"[1]
Greg Robinson of JazzTimes called the album "an enjoyable treatise on the state of the modern jazz trumpet," and commented: "In spite of the potential for screechiness, the performances never degenerate into mindless pyrotechnical display. While the individual trumpeters' influences may be all over the map, there is such good humor evident in the ensemble... that an anything-goes atmosphere prevails... Making Fanfare and Fiesta must have been a dream come true for Ragin."[6]
Writing for All About Jazz Jim Santella remarked: "It's each soloist's creative input that makes Ragin's second Justin Time album a success. The ensemble's members in turn, whether extended or in brief fours, wear a free attitude in their search for something new in jazz."[7] Another AAJ reviewer wrote: "Much more than a single musical tribute or musical element, Fanfare & Fiesta is a full-bodied CD that brings together all of Ragin's influences for the first time and presents what may become his working ensemble."[8]
