Jim Knapp's music is full of intensity, emotion and creative textures. His music should be more known. It's among the best of orchestral jazz being written these days. - MARIA SCHNEIDER. The career and music of Seattle-based composer/arranger and trumpeter James Knapp is a known and respected quantity in the inner circles of jazz music, inhabited by it's musicians, bandleaders, journalists and educators. Those fortunate enough to gain awareness of the intrinsic beauty of his music, place the work of his Composers and Improvisers Orchestra of the '70s-'80s, and his more recent assemblage, the 13-piece Jim Knapp Orchestra, in the upper echelon of modern jazz composition. For this 2009 session, we find the band focused and in top form, as it often was during a very active period in the early 2000s. Made up of a highly creative collection of colleagues from the Cornish College of the Arts, former students, and Seattle professionals, the music was approached with seriousness, dedication and honor, with the fun and fulfillment that comes with that level of involvement very evident.