Arturo Sandoval is a Cuban-American jazz trumpeter, pianist, timbalero, and composer. While living in his native Cuba, Sandoval was influenced by jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1977 he met Gillespie, who became his friend and mentor and helped him defect from Cuba while on tour with the United Nations Orchestra. Sandoval became an American naturalized citizen in 1998. His life was the subject of the film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000) starring Andy García.
Take 6 is an American a cappella gospel sextet formed in 1980 on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. The group integrates jazz with spiritual and inspirational lyrics. Take 6 has received several Grammy Awards as well as Dove Awards, a Soul Train Award and nominations for the NAACP Image Award.
Eddie Daniels is an American musician and composer. Although he is best known as a jazz clarinetist, he has also played saxophone and flute as well as classical music on clarinet.
Swingin' for the Fences is the debut album by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, an 18-piece big band led by Gordon Goodwin.
Frank Benjamin Foster III was an American tenor and soprano saxophonist, flautist, arranger, and composer. Foster collaborated frequently with Count Basie and worked as a bandleader from the early 1950s. In 1998, Howard University awarded Frank Foster with the Benny Golson Jazz Master Award.
Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, or simply The Big Phat Band, is an 18-piece jazz orchestra that combines the big band swing of the 1930s and 1940s with contemporary music such as funk and jazz fusion. The band is led by Gordon Goodwin, who arranges, composes, plays piano and saxophone. Since its origin, the Big Phat Band has received several Grammy Awards and many Grammy nominations.
Grant Geissman is an American jazz guitarist and Emmy-nominated composer. He has recorded extensively for several labels since 1976 and played guitar on the theme for Monk and other TV series.
The Phat Pack is the third studio album by the jazz ensemble Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. Goodwin received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement for the song "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes".
Wayne Bergeron is an American jazz trumpeter. Bergeron rose to prominence as a member of Maynard Ferguson's band in the 1980s. Since then, he has worked on over 400 TV and motion picture soundtracks.
John Rule Beasley, better known as John Beasley, is a jazz pianist, bandleader, and producer of music for film and television.
XXL is the second studio album by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, released on September 23, 2003. It includes guest performances by saxophonist Michael Brecker, vocal group Take 6, clarinetist Eddie Daniels, and singer Johnny Mathis.
Donald John Sebesky was an American composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz trombonist. He was a multi-instrumentalist and could play a number of other instruments: keyboards, electric piano, organ, accordion, and clavinet.
Act Your Age is the fourth album by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. It received a Grammy Award nomination in 2008 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Gordon Goodwin received nominations for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Arrangement ("Yesterdays").
Judith Glory Hill is an American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California. She has provided backing vocals for such artists as Michael Jackson, Prince, and Josh Groban. In 2009, Hill was chosen as Jackson's duet partner for the song "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" during his This Is It concerts. After Jackson's death in 2009, she, along with the rest of the This Is It cast members, performed at Jackson's memorial service and attracted global attention when she sang the lead on the song "Heal the World". Hill's rise to fame is recounted in 20 Feet from Stardom, a documentary film that tells the untold story of the backup singers behind some of the "greatest musical legends of the 21st century". She is also a featured artist on the film's soundtrack. She won the Grammy Award for Best Music Film for her performance in this film.
Geoffrey Keezer is an American jazz pianist. In 2023, he won the Best Instrumental Composition Grammy for Refuge
That's How We Roll is the fifth studio album by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, released on April 12, 2011. It features the title track, "That's How We Roll", the Grammy-nominated "Hunting Wabbits 3 ", and the Grammy-winning "Rhapsody in Blue".
Dave Siebels With: Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band is a jazz album, the sixth of Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. The group teamed up with Dave Siebels, a veteran organist, using many of Siebel's original compositions. The album includes funk, bebop, and modern big band-style songs and was released on December 1, 2008.
New Big Band is a term used to refer to the revivalist movement of 21st Century Jazz artists who are bringing a new form of Big Band music that fuses elements of traditional swing bands of leaders like Duke Ellington and Count Basie whose popularity peaked from the 1930s through the 1950s with the more intense sounds produced by smaller groups of the Bop era of the 1950s and beyond. The distinction between big bands that survived the 1970s and several big bands that have had some success in different parts of the world is that the sporadic big bands between the fall of the Big Band era and 2000 have been more preservationist in nature. The New Big Band movement is developing a new original jazz literature of fresh compositions as well as modern reinterpretations of standards through new arrangements that conform to the new style being presented to the public.
Life in the Bubble is an album by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band that won the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2015. Goodwin won an additional Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement for his version of the song "On Green Dolphin Street".
Bernard John Dresel Jr. is an American studio drummer and percussionist. He has been with multi-Grammy award-winning artists and recordings; most notably having performed and recorded extensively with The Brian Setzer Orchestra and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. The BBB Featuring Bernie Dresel has been performing since 2014 in numerous, prominent venues in Los Angeles and has recorded two notable CDs. He has recorded on numerous television shows and close to 60 movie soundtracks to include The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, The Sopranos, Incredibles 2, The Bourne Supremacy, Cars 2, Up, Super 8, The Mask and Elf.
