THE JAZZ WORD by Sylvannia Garutch,  July 2, 2018 

"Walt Gwardyak’s arranging and orchestrating skills with the big band ensemble explores many different jazz styles including: Blues, Salsa, New Orleans Jazz, Cool Jazz, Jazz Waltz and straight-ahead swing. Resulting in a captivating story and score for introducing jazz styles and genres, to all audiences."

WNPR FM by Owen McNally

 Gwardyak, who served with distinction with the Buddy Rich Band and performed with such jazz greats as Pepper Adams and Zoot Sims, has created a complex, engaging work, translating "Peter and the Wolf" into a modern big band jazz idiom that swings and stands on its own merits as a rich ensemble work.

WNPR FM by Owen McNally

"If you were casting an arranger/composer and a writer/singer to infuse the original classical piece with jazz body and soul, you couldn't find a better, more natural alliance than Gwardyak, a musical maven, and Gates, a vocalist/librettist who knows all about the molecular bending and shaping of sheer sound, syllables, words, phrases and lyrics into new forms that dance across bar lines on top of rhythms and harmonies."

 BLOGCRITICS.ORG Published 10:00 pm PDT,  July 11, 2018 By susanfrancesny

 In the title track, arranger Walt Gwardyak channels several different musical styles including salsa, blues, ragtime jazz, and jazz waltz, forming a stream of seamless sequences along the composition. The lounging swagger of the trombones along Jeff Holmes' "Wolves" is delightfully animated, embellished by the slinky ambling of Gwardyak's accordion. 

ALL ABOUT JAZZ by Nicholas F. Mondello 6/27/2018

 The arrangements and orchestrations by Walter Gwardyak, Jeff Holmes, and John Mastroianni are killer. These arrangers here have done their homework exceptionally well. The musical representations of the various animal characters, Peter and Grandpa are dead-on. 

5 FINGER REVIEW By Bea Willis

 This large jazz ensemble provides the opportunity for arranger Walt Gwardyak to bring Prokofiev’s mid-1930s composition into the modern era and bring it into the world of jazz, in all of its glorious hipitude.  Gwardyak takes the composition and creates a compelling reworking of the orchestration and rhythms to introduce audiences to the jazz style and genre all in one extended work. 

ALLMUSIC by Dave Nathan

"Storm Before the Calm" review.

Jazz Weekly by George Harris, May 2018

 The New England Jazz Ensemble mixes the music of Prokofiev with that of its members on this exciting and fresh album. 

IN TUNE INTERNATIONAL LTD (U.K.) by Dan Singer, August 2018

And now for something completely different. Be-bopper Giacomo Gates creates and stars in a brand new version of the Sergei Prokofiev masterpiece “Peter And The Wolf”. True he does not sing but his newly written “jazzbretto” narration of over 30 minutes, enables us to hear an updated take on this most familiar children’s delight. Helping him along the way is the remarkable New England jazz ensemble led by Walt Gwardyak. It sounds like a richly huge jazz orchestra. 

ALL ABOUT JAZZ  by Jack Bowers, July 2018

 The redesigned [Peter & the Wolf] suite, which encompasses almost thirty-four minutes on the NEJE's sixth CD, was arranged by pianist / music director Walt Gwardyak with narration by the well-known jazz singer Giacomo Gates who has cleverly brought Prokofiev's libretto up to speed for a twenty-first century audience. 

JAZZ & BLUES REPORT by Ron Weinstock, August 2018 (page 10)

 Jazz vocalist Giacomo Gates provided a fresh take of the libretto with his narration as the ensemble negotiates Walt Gwardyak’s arrangement   which brings together a mix of a variety of jazz styles with specific instruments representing specific animals or the whole ensemble as Peter. It is a thoroughly captivating performance that is marvelously played by all in a gumbo of blues, salsa, cool jazz, bebop, big band jazz and more.