More anniversary celebrations...15th for the big band!

This Wednesday night we will be celebrating our 15th year of playing music together as the Diane Moser's Composers Big Band! 15 years! Wow!

We will start the night off with my tune and the name of this blog.."Flipped Kitty in the City",  move into some "Boogie Stop Shuffle" by Charles Mingus.....

then onto some new compositions by Marty Fogel and Erick Storckman....

 a new arrangement by Russ Vines on Billy Harper's tune "Priestess"

 and guest trumpet player Chris Rogers' arrangement on Tom Harrell's tune "The Water's Edge", we'll also play a wonderful composition that we played last time and looking forward to playing again by Rob Henke called 'Koufax"..in memory of Sandy Koufax,
we'll also be playing a Duke Pearson chart that Mike Spengler is bringing in called "Chili Peppers"

and ending the 1st set with my composition "For My Mother".

The second set we'll play Matt Haviland's tune "Comes A Time",

Jim Cifelli's tune "Blues For McCoy"

 a beautiful arrangement of a Joe Zawinul tune "A Remark You Made' by Ed Xiques...and end the set with Ed's tune "The Newcomer".

(photos courtesy of Chris Drukker...thank you Chris!)

Tonight I was sorting music and "cleaning out the books" as we call it...discovering hidden treasures of old set lists and such..sometimes I find photographs and notes about this and that...and while I'm doing that I can hear the band rehearsing the music (in my head) and what was said and sections that were worked out..and how the performances went...and the hang after the rehearsal and after the gig....
It is amazing to me that we have been together for 15 years and I feel so honored to be working with these outstanding musicians and wonderful souls who come together to create what Jim Cifelli calls a Sonic Party.... because it is absolutely that...a Sonic Party! And you are all in invited!

Our brilliant friend and photographer/film maker Dennis Connors has been working on a documentary about the big band, and has put together a short preview of that ...which you can view here.