The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble is an American instrumental musical group led by Boston, Massachusetts based saxophonist Ken Field. They performs an improvised style inspired by the second linebrass bands of New Orleans parades. The group's colorful costumes and creative arrangements have earned it invitations to entertain audiences as large as 20,000
The Ensemble can be heard on Parade of Numbers, an animated counting piece regularly aired on the beloved children's program Sesame Street, since 1995. It was animated by Field's late wife Karen Aqua (1954-2011).
Repeatedly nominated in their Best Music Poll by The Boston Phoenix and WFNX Radio, the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble includes a roster of notable Boston-area musicians. The group has been twice nominated by a panel of music writers and critics for a Boston Music Award, and was nominated Best Jazz Group in the 2014 New England Music Awards.
Their latest release, Live Snakes (Accurate Records 2014), was recorded in 2011 and 2013 in Boston, Brooklyn, & Manhattan, and documents four distinct incarnations of the ensemble, with two remixes by Field. "Live Snakes" features guest musicians Charles Neville, Josh Roseman, Kenny Wollesen, and Matt Darriau.
Forked Tongue, the group's second CD, was released May 13, 2008 on the Cuneiform label and includes, among other tracks, a brass reinterpretation of Billy Idol's "White Wedding." The CD was included on best-of-year lists from the Village Voice, Georgia Public Radio, the Postimees (Estonia), KMUW (Wichita), WFNX (Boston), WRUW (Cleveland), AllAboutJazz.com, WUSM (Madison, WI), WNMC (Detroit), and WUSB (Stony Brook, NY).
Year of the Snake was the group's debut CD, and includes interpretations of music by other artists including Field, Sun Ra, John Scofield and James Brown. Liner notes were contributed by two-time Grammy-winning New Orleans music producer Scott Billington. The CD was listed as one of the top CDs of the year on New York NPR affiliate WNYC, in the New Orleans Gambit Weekly, and on Radio Popolare in Milan, Italy.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
Leroy Jenkins was an American composer and violinist/violist.
The Hungry March Band is an American brass band with approximately 15-20 active musicians and performers. In performance, the group's size can vary from five to fifty: from a quintet to a large corps of musicians, dancers, baton twirlers, and hula hoopers.
The Rebirth Brass Band is a New Orleans brass band. The group was founded in 1983 by tuba/sousaphone player Phillip "Tuba Phil" Frazier, his brother, bass drummer Keith Frazier, and trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, along with other classmates and marching band members from Joseph S. Clark Senior High School, which closed in the spring of 2018, in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood. The band released its first album in 1984 on Arhoolie Records which was recorded in the Grease Lounge, a Tremé neighborhood bar, and in 1989 gained wider notice with a series of releases on Rounder Records.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a New Orleans, Louisiana, brass band. The ensemble was established in 1977 by Benny Jones and members of the Tornado Brass Band. The Dirty Dozen revolutionized the New Orleans brass band style by incorporating funk and bebop into the traditional New Orleans jazz style, and since has been a major influence on local music.
George Wein is an American jazz promoter, pianist, and producer and is considered one of the most famous jazz impresarios in jazz history". He is the founder of what is probably the best-known jazz festival in the United States, the Newport Jazz Festival, which is held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. He also co-founded the Newport Folk Festival with Peter Seeger and Theodore Bikel and was instrumental in the founding of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands, but may more correctly termed military bands, concert bands, or "brass and reed" bands.
Edward L. Wilkerson Jr. is an internationally recognized American jazz composer, arranger, musician, and educator based in Chicago. As founder and director of the cutting-edge octet 8 Bold Souls, and the 25-member performance ensemble Shadow Vignettes, Wilkerson has toured festivals and concert halls throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. "Defender", a large-scale piece for Shadow Vignettes, was commissioned by the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund and featured in the 10th Anniversary of New Music America, a presentation of BAM's Next Wave Festival.
Ken Field is a saxophonist, flautist, percussionist, and composer. Since 1988 he has been a member of the electrified modern music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, with whom he has recorded eight CDs.
Troy Andrews, also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is an American musician, producer, actor and philanthropist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known as a trombone and trumpet player but also plays drums, organ, and tuba. He has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill. Other musical family members are cousins Glen David Andrews and the late Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill. Andrews began playing trombone at age four, and since 2009 has toured with his own band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.
Scott Billington is an American record producer, songwriter, record company executive and blues musician.
Timothy Wesley John Brady is a Canadian composer, electric guitarist, improvising musician, concert producer, record producer and cultural activist. Working in the field of contemporary classical music, experimental music, and musique actuelle, his compositions utilize a variety of styles from serialism to minimalism and often incorporate modern instruments such as electric guitars and other electroacoustic instruments. His music is marked by a synthesis of musical languages, having developed an ability to use elements of many musical styles while retaining a strong sense of personal expression. Some of his early recognized works are the 1982 orchestral pieces Variants and Visions, his Chamber Concerto (1985), the chamber trio ...in the Wake..., and his song cycle Revolutionary Songs (1994).
HONK!, also known as HONK! Fest, is a festival of activist street bands held annually on Columbus Day weekend in Somerville, Massachusetts. Each year since 2006, an all-volunteer organizing community invites more than 25 bands from around New England, North America, and the world to participate in this free three-day event that showcases acoustic and ambulatory bands playing free music in public spaces. Since its inception, it has inspired additional HONK! festivals in other locations.
The Onward Brass Band was either of two brass bands active in New Orleans for extended periods of time.
John Serry Jr. is a jazz pianist and composer, as well as a composer of contemporary classical music works that feature percussion, on which he also doubles. He is a son of the accordionist and composer John Serry. His debut solo album was 'Exhibition', for which he received a Grammy Nomination for his composition, 'Sabotage'.
The Pride of the Mountains is the marching band of Western Carolina University. The band performs pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows at all Catamount Football home games and provides exhibition performances throughout the Carolinas. Unlike most college marching bands, the Pride of the Mountains designs, creates, and performs one perfected halftime show other than doing different performances every week.
Dixieland, sometimes referred to as hot jazz or traditional jazz, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century.
Hot Tamale Brass Band is a brass band that plays traditional New Orleans jazz, dixieland, jazz funeral and funky second line music. The band is based in the Boston area. The band has nine full-time members, sometimes performing as small as a quintet, other times performing with as many as 42 members for a Disney special event.
The University of California Jazz Ensembles, also known as the UC Jazz Ensembles, UC Jazz, or UCJE, is the student jazz organization founded in 1967 on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Founded in 1967, it comprises one or more big bands, numerous jazz combos, a vocal jazz ensemble, an alumni big band, and instructional classes. With a mission statement to foster a community for the performance, study, and promotion of jazz at U.C. Berkeley, its Wednesday Night big band provides free concerts every Thursday noon on Lower Sproul Plaza, its various units perform throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including area high schools, travel to collegiate jazz festivals, and perform overseas, and for many years it sponsored the annual Pacific Coast Jazz Festival. It also provides master classes by its instructors and clinics by prominent guest artists. It has nurtured numerous musicians who have become professional jazz musicians and educators. UC Jazz Ensembles is one of three groups, with the Cal (marching) Band and UC Choral Ensembles, forming Student Musical Activities (SMA), a department within Cal Performances on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Its members are primarily U.C. Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, representing many academic disciplines.
The Soul Rebels are an eight-piece New Orleans based brass ensemble that incorporate elements of soul, jazz, funk, hip-hop, rock and pop music within a contemporary brass band framework.
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