The oldest community supported big band in America.
The Spokane Jazz Orchestra announces our
March 2010 concert, "Swingin' with the Piano Man," featuring jazz pianist Brent
Edstrom, on Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 8PM at the Bing Crosby Theater
in Spokane. Edstrom will present new arrangements for piano and big band as
well as music by his own group the "Brent Edstrom Trio." The Spokane Jazz
Orchestra is a seventeen-piece big band under the direction of Tom Molter.
Brent
Edstrom is a
pianist, composer, author and educator who is noted for the diversity of his
career. He has performed throughout the United States as a pianist and music
director for vocalist Freda Payne and frequently performs in the Northwest as a soloist and with his trio. A prolific
composer and arranger, Edstrom has written for notable performers Carmen
Bradford, Dee Daniels and Freda Payne and his arrangements have been featured
by many orchestras including the Dallas Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Spokane
Symphony, Spokane Jazz Orchestra and the Eastman Jazz Ensemble. His Concerto for Jazz Piano & Orchestra
will be performed by Orchestra Seattle on June 6th of this year. In
2008 he received a commission to arrange Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" for a
Gala performance at the Beverly Hilton honoring Clint Eastwood. Edstrom
currently works as a freelance writer and arranger for Hal Leonard Corporation.
Highlights of publishing work include transcriptions and arrangements of the
music of Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Kenny Barron and many others.
Edstrom has authored several new books including Musicianship In the Digital
Age, distributed internationally by Thomson/Cengage, and Recording On a
Budget for Oxford University Press. Edstrom holds a Bachelor of Music
degree in classical piano performance from Washington State University and a
Master of Music degree in jazz studies and contemporary media from the Eastman
School of Music. He is currently an
associate professor at Whitworth University where he teachers jazz piano
and coordinates the jazz combo, music theory, and composition programs.
SJO is also proud to announce its lineup for the 2009-2010 concert season at the Bing Crosby theater in downtown Spokane:
March 13, 2010, Swingin’ with the Piano Man featuring Brent Edstrom
May 8, 2010, Memories in Song with Greta Matassa
Single show tickets will go on sale through Ticketwest on August 1st.
New Music Director
Tom Molter has been chosen as the new music director for
the Spokane Jazz Orchestra. Following a nine month search process
conducted by the Spokane Jazz Society, Molter follows Dan Keberle who
directed the group for fifteen years.
Molter leads a very active life as a music teacher, composer/arranger
and performer. As an educator he has taught at the elementary, middle
school, high school, and collegiate levels. He currently is Director
of Bands at Evergreen Middle School in Spokane Valley, and also teaches
jazz arranging at Eastern Washington University. His award winning
jazz compositions have been featured and performed at concert band,
jazz band, and marching band festivals throughout the Pacific
Northwest, and much of his music has been published by the C.L.
Barnhouse Company, Neil Kjos Music Company, and Daniel Barry
Publications. His performance career as a professional trombonist and
music director include extended engagements with Carnival and Royal
Caribbean Cruise Lines, the Tom Molter Big band, and the jazz sextet
Kind of Blue. Tom holds a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from
the University of Idaho and a Teaching Certificate degree from
Whitworth University.
Upcoming Events
Brent Edstrom teaches jazz piano and coordinates the jazz combo, music theory, and composition programs at Whitworth University. He is one of the most sought after and often requested jazz pianists in the Pacific Northwest, and performs often in all parts of the USA. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in classical piano performance from Washington State University and a Master of Music degree in jazz studies and contemporary media from the Eastman School of Music. Edstrom's active performance career has placed him on stage with many well-known performers including Clark Terry, Ernie Watts, Lee Konitz, John Faddis, Bob Berg, Bob Mintzer and Peter Erskin. In addition to teaching and performing, Edstrom is active as a composer and arranger. He currently works as a freelance writer and arranger for Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. Highlights of publishing work include transcriptions and arrangements of the music of Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Kenny Barron and many others. Edstrom has completed several new publications including Musicianship In the Digital Age, distributed nationally by Thomson Learning, and Bill Evans Signature Licks, Hard Bop For Piano, and Latin Jazz Piano, distributed by Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. He is currently at work conducting research on the topic of music-notation algorithms in the C++ computer language.
In the Pacific Northwest, where she built her career, Greta Matassa wins wide acclaim; four times, the readers of Earshot, the Seattle jazz magazine, have voted her the best jazz vocalist in the Northwest. Jim Wilke, the Seattle jazz maven and host of the syndicated "Jazz after Hours" radio program, praises her versatility. "She has a fearlessness in approaching material,” Wilke says, "that makes her like an instrumentalist in a jam session.” Seattle Times critic Misha Berson described Matassa as a vocal chameleon who "can sound husky or crisp, ebullient or wailing, girlish or jaded.” Matassa displays all of those aspects of her talent in this live recording made at Bake's Place, a small club in Redmond, across Lake Washington from Seattle.
Matassa's fascination with songs began early. Her family moved frequently when she was small, but by the time she entered middle school, they had settled on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, opposite Seattle. This is what she said about her childhood: "Growing up, my parents were big jazz fans and we had a lot of jazz music around the house. They were happy to encourage my interest in music. My father is a visual artist, and we used to spend hours talking about abstract expressionism and how that related to jazz. "We listened to all the great stuff. I really liked the music from the thirties and forties, early Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday. I used to listen to a lot of Fred Astaire, a lot of Frank Sinatra. I never took lessons. While I was teaching myself to sing, my dad and I haunted used record stores. He'd choose anybody he knew that he thought would be interesting, and we'd just pick some people we'd never heard of and bring them home.
"I listened to instrumentalists, too, including Dizzy Gillespie and Art Farmer. My dad had a lot of West Coast jazz, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond. I listened to them, but I focused on the singers. I learned by singing along with them. I decided I wasn't going to be disciplined enough to do scales, so I thought, 'why don't I just see if I can find out how Billie Holiday got that sound and how Carmen McRae got her sound.' I'd sing with them over and over. I call it standing on the shoulders of giants. You sort of go along for the ride and see what it feels like. Then, as I got a chance to sing with rhythm sections, I'd experiment, throwing in an Ella Fitzgerald lick or a Sarah Vaughan lick, but at the same time struggling with how to become an individual, which is a lifelong endeavor.
