Tag Archives: Big Band

JazzWorldQuest Showcase 2024: Itiberê Orquestra Familia Da França (France/Brazil)

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Itiberê Orquestra Família Da França

Nouvel album Live à Paris

Sortie le 19/04/2024 chez Inouïe Distribution

Itiberê Orquestra Familia Da França dévoile son extraordinaire Live à Paris dans un album déjà disponible en digital et qui sort en physique le 19 avril 2024.

Avec ses 23 musiciens français et brésiliens, le Live à Paris est un pari fou qui sidère l’entendement par sa démesure musicale.

Itiberê Orquestra familia da França est un orchestre franco-brésilien dirigé par Itiberê Zwarg, très proche collaborateur d’Hermeto Pascoal. Imaginé des deux côtés de l’Atlantique par le saxophoniste Benoit Crauste et Itiberê Zwarg, l’IOF a été conçu pendant la pandémie. L’Orquestra Familia a vu le jour en 2022 à Paris lors du Festival Sons d’Hiver où il a donné deux concerts dont on retrouve l’essentiel sur disque aujourd’hui. Il réunit 18 musiciens de jazz parisien et 4 musiciens brésiliens dont Ajurinã et Mariana Zwarg, sous la direction d’Itiberê.

Entre jazz, classique, expérimentation et musique brésilienne, L’Orquestra Familia Da França se pare de tous les superlatifs. L’album Live In Paris concrétise le rêve d’un échange culturel fort autour d’une musique instrumentale innovatrice, symbole de l’amitié entre la France et le Brésil. On peut plonger dans les coulisses de l’enregistrement avec une vidéo signée du réalisateur Clément Crauste.

Pour regarder et diffuser la vidéo du Live à Paris :

Projet d’une grandiose luxuriance musicale, la sortie de l’album Live à Paris du Itiberê Orquestra Familia Da França est un événement pour tous les amateurs de jazz et de musique brésilienne. Hors norme et démesuré, ce projet séduit par son gigantisme et sa folie contagieuse.

Enregistré à Paris en 2022 à l’invitation du festival Sons d’Hiver, l’album Live In Paris est une création de l’Itiberê Orquestra Familia Da França qui réunit 23 musiciens franco-brésiliens.

Bassiste historique, considéré comme l’un des grands artisans du renouveau de la musique instrumentale brésilienne et principal collaborateur de Hermeto Pascoal, Itiberê Zwarg affirme la dynamique d’un orchestre effusif, jouant sans cesse avec l’esprit de célébration rituelle de la musique, source de vivacité et d’extase. Source agitée par la transmission orale et collaborative.

Au sein des différentes versions de l’Itiberê Orquestra Família, Itiberê Zwarg adore faire jouer la part d’expérience de chacun dans une musique d’ensemble. Ce qui est fondamental pour les musiciennes et musiciens français et brésiliens réunis ici, c’est la liberté d’inventer et de créer.

A l’issue des répétitions en janvier 2022, l’orchestre franco-brésilien a donné deux concerts dont voici sur disque quelques-uns des meilleurs moments. La musique est à l’image du Brésil prodigue qui l’a vue naître, terre d’invention à la poésie exubérante et grand mélangeur du monde. Le répertoire de l’orchestre est librement inspiré de l’univers musical français. Itiberê y restitue les impressions ressenties lors de ses nombreuses tournées avec Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo.

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JazzWorldQuest Showcase 2024

New Album/Hungary: New Days Ahead – The Music of Daniel Hofecker – special guests: Eva Bolba and Stjepko Gut

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New Days Ahead – The Music of Daniel Hofecker – special guests: Eva Bolba and Stjepko Gut

The collaboration of the well-established Budapest Jazz Orchestra big band with young lion Daniel Hofecker has yielded a very exquisite result. Daniel is one of the most talented young composers and arrangers of his generation, not to mention that he’d earned his BA as a jazz trumpet player at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, before transferring to the University of Performing Arts in Graz, Austria, where he graduated with a Distinguished MA Diploma in 2022 in jazz composition and arrangement. For this album he collected the pieces that he had penned in the last couple of years, especially the ones that he got a great number of accolades for at international competitions of jazz composition and arrangement (see tracklist for details).


The title of the album is New Day Suite, alluding to his four-movement suite, which depicts a full day from dawn, through daytime, sunset and night. According to Hofecker, the greatest challenge of this composition was how one could depict the different characteristics of changing times and moods of a day by letting a powerful big band blow and hit their instruments. The piece One for Beni is an exercise in style in which Hofecker pays tribute to Bob Brookmeyer, whose composing and arrangement technique he applied here. La Galérie Des Cotelles is a piece inspired by a place in the Versailles castle in France.

It has a historical significance for Hungarians, unfortunately a very tragic one, since the ending of the First World War was sealed by a very unfavorable peace treaty for Hungary. What the composer aimed to do was illustrating the gloomy state of mind that has haunted Hungarians thinking about the peace treaty for over a century. The peace Politics is thematically related as it tries to illustrate the tensions, dilemmas and the unpleasant moments of political debate which no one can be completely exempt from.

One of the most influential teachers of Hofecker during his years in Graz was trumpet legend from Serbia Stjepko Gut -Hofecker says. “It was such a great inspiration for me all the time how he produced the idiosyncratic and inimitable melodies, rhythm, phraseology and swing that he is known for” – says the one-time student. This is behind the track, Mr. S.G. obviously a tribute to his master who himself embellished the piece with a phenomenal after the theme had been put forward by Éva Bolba.

Something like an encore, showcasing Daniel’s arranging skills is a standard, the unforgettable Cheek to Cheek also recorded by the ensemble: it aims at a sound typical of New York’s Village Vanguard big band, blending traditional and modern approaches. To make all good things three, Hofecker’s trumpet playing is also featured on his debut album.

Tracklist: (Including awards and competition prizes)

  1. New Day Suite – I. Dawnin’ Big Band Composition Contest of the Hungarian Jazz Federation, Budapest, First place, 2016
  2. New Day Suite – II. Daytime Helsinki International Big Band Composing Contest, Finalist, 2019
  3. New Day Suite – III. Sunset
  4. New Day Suite – IV. Night
  5. One For Beni Big Band Composition Contest of the Hungarian Jazz Federation, Budapest, First place, 2018; Barga Jazz Festival and Competition (Italy), Finalist, 2022
  6. La Galérie Des Cotelles – Big Band Composition Contest of the Hungarian Jazz Federation, Budapest, 2nd Prize and Best Composition Prize, 2021; Karel Krautgartner’s Composition Contest For a Jazz Orchestra, Prague, 3rd Prize, 2021
  7. Politics Barga Jazz Festival and Competition (Italy), Grand Prize, 2021; Downbeat Magazine’s Student Music Awards, Outstanding Composition Award, 2022
  8. Mr. S.G. Helsinki International Big Band Composing Contest, Finalist, 2021
  9. Cheek To Cheek (I. Berlin)

Online stream: https://bfan.link/new-days-ahead

ARC Trio and the John Daversa Big Band - ARCEOLOGY

JazzWorldQuest Showcase 2022: ARC Trio and the John Daversa Big Band – ARCEOLOGY

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ARC Trio and the John Daversa Big Band(USA)-Red and Gold
Album: ARCEOLOGY The Music of MSM Schmidt
Label: Blue Canoe Records

For the past several years, former Yellowjackets bassist and prolific producer Jimmy Haslip has enjoyed an ongoing working relationship with the Bremen, Germany-based jazz fusion keyboardist and composer Michael Schmidt (aka MSM Schmidt). While Haslip played on Schmidt’s 2007 album Transit and 2009’s Destination, he ended up coproducing 2012’s Evolution, 2015’s Utopia and 2017’s Life. They take their chemistry to new heights on ARCeology: The Music of MSM Schmidt.
This dynamic offering finds Haslip and members of his ARC Trio (keyboardist Scott Kinsey and Hungarian drummer Gergö Borlai) joining forces with the GRAMMY® Award-winning John Daversa Big Band on greatly expanded versions of previously recorded Schmidt material, along with two brand new pieces composed by Kinsey and Schmidt. The result is a powerhouse collection of polished, swaggering big band fusion along the lines of the Jaco Pastorius Big Band or The Brecker Brothers’ 2003 collaboration with the WDR Big Band Köln on Some Skunk Funk.

“I wanted to see if I could make this a big band record but somehow make it different,” said Haslip. “I didn’t think it should sound like a vintage big band recording. I wanted it to sound modern and have more of an edge, which is what led me to include guest soloists like Nguyên Lê, Mike Miller, Steve Khan, Oz Noy and others. They bring progressive elements into the big band setting and add compelling ideas to each song.”
Out of the eight songs that appear on ARCeology, six were previously recorded on other Michael Schmidt records. The two brand new compositions here are Schmidt’s “Mirrors” and Kinsey’s “Quartet.” And as Haslip noted, “In approaching this project, there was the thought that if you’re going to redo songs that have already been recorded, what can be done to make them sound like new compositions? And I think with Scott’s rhythm arrangements and John’s input on the horn parts, we came up with some creative solutions.”

Haslip also credited Kinsey, who became de facto co-producer of ARCeology. “Originally, I was the point producer on this whole thing, but as time went on I just knew that Scott needed to be a part of the production team,” he recalled. “We weren’t far into the project when I approached Scott and said, ‘I want you to be my co-producer on this because you’re contributing so much great work and it’s only fair that we do this together.’ He was up for that, so I am happy to say that Scott and I co-produced the record. I can’t take full credit for what’s happened here, as Scott was the real workhorse. He played most of the keyboard and synth parts and did all the keyboard solos, of course. Also, Scott’s rhythm arrangements had a big hand in influencing John’s horn arrangements. There was a lot of cool stuff already in place for John to just embellish. But then again, John has his own unique voice for orchestration. Everything he wrote after the fact was fantastic.”

Blue Canoe Records

JazzWorldQuest Showcase 2022