" data-original-title="" title="">Ryan Haines recorded a big-band album he had a day gig with the U.S. Armed Services—more specifically, as lead trombonist and chief arranger for the Air Force Falconaires at the USAF Academy, just north of Colorado Springs, CO. That was in 2007, and the album was People and Places (Sea Breeze Jazz), Haines' third widely applauded—and favorably reviewed—recording as leader of his own band. After leaving the Air Force, Haines returned to his native Arizona to launch a new career, this one as a composer, arranger and educator. But once a big-band leader...

The bug kept biting until Haines conceded that the time had come to produce another album, so he gathered together a first-class ensemble and headed to a studio in Denton, TX (Haines is, in 2023, an adjunct professor of jazz trombone at the University of Texas-Arlington) to record Emerald and Sapphire.. Haines arranged every one of the album's eleven numbers and wrote all but one, Jerome Kern's exquisite "Look for the Silver Lining," usually performed as a ballad but redrawn here as a flag-waving curtain-raiser with blistering statements by Haines—who solos on every number—and drummer