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>>
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>>
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.” “He gets the musicians to play better than they think they can,” says Spicka. | Read more>>
Common Ground on the Hill started in Westminster in 1994 as a summer festival of American roots music. In recent years Common Ground’s offerings have been expanded to include summer music camps, workshops, and year-round concerts in Westminster and Baltimore.
Organizations that present American roots music rarely include jazz, oddly enough, so I was pleasantly surprised when Common Ground announced that it was sponsoring jazz at two of six venues in downtown Westminster on July 7th, with Celtic, blues and “alt-grass” bands at the other four locations. | 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>>