Big Band of the Week

This nineteen-piece big band is unique not only in name, but also in mission. They play only compositions by their leader, Dylan Schuman, who graduated from Towson University in 2016, majoring in jazz/commercial trumpet performance. Schuman formed Screaming Art Large (SAL) a few months later. | Read more>> Read more

The Reisterstown Jazz Ensemble bills itself as a “band for all occasions”: weddings, stage concerts, dances, jazz festivals, rock concerts — even funerals. You name it. Band director, trumpeter, and vocalist Scott Cater, who founded the band in 1992 along with lead trumpeter Scott Bowers, his former bandmate at Franklin High School, says he never wanted the band to get pigeonholed into one style of music. | Read more>> Read more

Powerhouse is the official jazz big band of Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC)’s Essex campus. The band was led by bassist Ashton Fletcher until his death in 2015. Since then trombonist John Morgan has directed the band. Pianist George Spicka describes Morgan as “a great director, very knowledgeable, especially with horns, inspirational, with a lot of enthusiasm.” | Read more>> Read more

Here’s yet another Baltimore-area big band led by a retired music educator, in this case Thomas “Whit” Williams, who taught in Anne Arundel County schools for 37 years. Whit, who was honored by BJA with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, has been one of the most prominent sax players on the Baltimore scene since the mid-1950s. | Read more>> Read more

In 2014 the idea of starting this big band came to trumpeter Ron Rolling after an inspiring performance by students from John Lamkin II’s B Sharp Academy. Rolling went to another trumpeter he had known since the mid-‘90s at Morgan State University, Terrance Gallop, saying, “We’ve got to put a band together to pass this on to the youth.” | Read more>> Read more