The New England Jazz Ensemble, an invaluable cultural asset deserving far wider recognition, has taken another significant step in its distinguished career with the release of its first live recording.

With its trademark mix of swing and sophistication, the Hartford-based regional band displays its musical depth and expressive range on a new disc recorded live Oct. 15, 2005, at the Pittsfield CityJazz Festival at Berkshire Music Hall, Pittsfield, Mass.

Distributed by Sea Breeze Jazz Records, “New England Jazz Ensemble Live at the Pittsfield CityJazz Festival” is a fine sampler of NEJE’s vitality and versatility. The project was made possible by a grant from the Aaron.

An alliance of high-caliber professional musicians from throughout New England, NEJE was founded in 1991 by its pianist and music director, Walter Gwardyak, and trumpeter Mike Jones. It was originally conceived as a rehearsal band to serve as a forum for new compositions by its resident composers. A non-profit organization, NEJE plows proceeds it generates back into its maintenance costs ranging from rehearsal expenses to travel costs.

There’s no profit motive here. So what’s the incentive?

Players join NEJE out of love for the music and because it’s a high quality cooperative and expressive outlet for kindred spirits bonded by a deep commitment to compose, arrange and play fresh-sounding ensemble jazz.

One of the band’s hallmarks has been its openness to new, creative writing as a way to move away from big band stereotypes.

Playing with an empathetic group of peers provides members with a creative refuge from their necessary but sometimes confining professional duties.

The band’s joy in exploring originality comes shining through on its new album in many ways, including its showcasing of the composing and arranging skills of Gwardyak and his colleagues, lead saxophonist John Mastroianni and lead trumpeter Jeff Holmes.

Many members teach music at the high school and university level or as private instructors, a factor that accounts for one of the repertory troupe’s prime missions, which is to spread the word about jazz through education.

Mastroianni, for example, is a noted music educator who has been one of the guiding forces in propelling the nationally recognized jazz program at West Hartford’s Hall High School. Gwardyak, the band’s maestro, is dean of music at the Hartford Conservatory and teaches in the school’s jazz program.

Since its start with sessions in a restaurant in Windsor, the band has recorded four albums and taken its contemporary big band message to the Corinth Jazz Festival in Greece. (The trip was underwritten by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources.)

NEJE has played in the Lake George Jazz Festival to the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz. Its many guest soloists have included Phil Wilson, Dick Johnson, Giacomo Gates and Ali Ryerson.

It has given clinics in high schools. And its large repertoire, which includes a storehouse of hundreds of original charts, features the Ellington/Strayhorn “Nutcracker Suite,” a hardy holiday perennial.

As a sign of the NEJE’s credo, which is rooted in playing bold, original material, it has performed Gwardyak’s acclaimed three-movement suite for symphony orchestra and jazz band with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and with the Manchester Community Orchestra. Combining jazz elements and classical orchestral traditions, Gwardyak drew on serial music and 12-tone techniques for his third-stream blend of symphonic colors and big band swing. On Gwardyak’s strictly jazz originals for NEJE, the composer/arranger, who writes voicings that both sing and swing, blends the power of a big band with the agility and quickness of a combo.

On the new album, NEJE sounds right at home grooving through blues, bebop, bossa, ballads, modal and odd-time signatures. Gwardyak’s clever piece called “Neves” (seven spelled backward) features variations on a funk lick done in 7/4. Smart and accessible, it’s a toe-tapping opus de funk sure to delight both old and new big band fans.

Similarly, Mastroianni’s composition, “Nasty Masty,” is packed with pizazz and accented by the multi-instrumentalist’s crisp work on alto.

Holmes’ “Esprit” – an apt title for this band with beaucoup esprit de corps – kicks off the CD after a brief intro by the concert’s emcee. Immediately, it sets the standard for the band’s clean unison sound, soloing strengths and persistent sense of swing.

Besides its composing and arranging assets, NEJE boasts a first-rate lineup in all its sections, including many names familiar to Hartford jazz fans such as alto saxophonist Bob DePalma, tenor saxophonist George Sovak and trombonist Peter McEachern.

The new disc’s personnel are reeds: Mastroianni, DePalma, Sovak, Larry Dvorin and Lisa LaDone; trumpets/flugelhorns: Holmes, Steve Fitzko, Phil Person and Hank Zorn; trombones: Tim Atherton (lead), McEachern, Dave Sporny and Dave Wampler; rhythm section: Gwardyak, bassist Steve Bulmer
and drummer Jon Mele.

Gwardyak finds encouraging signs, not just in the resiliency and quality of NEJE, an acoustic band, but even in such high-tech, post-Big Band Era innovations as the Internet.

The Internet, he says gratefully, helps spread the word about NEJE.

Gwardyak explains: “I got an e-mail from someone in Australia inquiring about how to get our charts. And I just sold a CD to somebody from England, who had heard about us through the Internet,” he says.

Another web-browsing fan was so impressed with the NEJE that he contacted Gwardyak, inquiring if the band would be willing to play at an upscale wedding in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

“We don’t play weddings,” Gwardyak says,” but this guy really dug jazz, and said he just wanted us to play jazz and nothing else, all instrumental, no singers, no deejays. So we went and played under a tent outdoors. It was all jazz, and they loved it.”

The first half of the enterprise is devoted to well-known if not wholly traditional Christmas fare, the second to selections from Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn’s swing-centered adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet (transcribed by David Berger), and music director Walt Gwardyak’s ensemble is completely at ease in either mode. The opening theme, “We Wish You a Cookin’ Christmas,” is a potpourri of seasonal favorites (including “Good King Wenceslas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Carol of the Bells”) arranged by trumpeter Jeff Holmes. Holmes also arranged “Jolly Ole St. Nick,” which embodies fragments of “Deck the Halls” and “Jingle Bells,” and plays the leading trumpet role on Gwardyak’s lush arrangement of Bob Wells / Mel Tormé’s “The Christmas Song.”

“Rudolph” next reappears in a funky new wardrobe (thanks again to Gwardyak’s glistening arrangement), followed by “Winter Wonderland” and “Frosty the Snowman,” each rigorously designed by Holmes, and a medley of “Christmas Time Is Here” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” deftly sewn together by John Mastroianni.

The Nutcracker selections, lovingly reassembled by Berger from an Ellington/Strayhorn score that had vanished without a trace (he did so by listening to the original Ellington recording), feature authentic ensemble passages interspersed with more up-to-date improvisations by various members of the orchestra. Tenor George Sovak is showcased on two of them (“Sugar Rum Cherry,” “The Volga Vouty”) and shares the spotlight with Mastroianni’s clarinet on “Chinoiserie.”

Others heard from include Gwardyak, trombonists Peter McEachern and Tim Atherton, tenor Larry Dvorin, trumpeters Phil Person and Steve Fitzko, baritone Lisa LaDone, alto Bob DePalma and bassist Steve Bulmer. Earlier, DePalma is featured on “St. Nick,” Mastroianni (alto) and Person on “Rudolph,” Mastroianni (soprano) and Dave Sporny (euphonium) on “Wonderland,” Sporny (trombone) and McEachern on “Frosty.”

As I said, albums like this one aren’t just for
Christmas anymore but are suitable for cookin’ in anyone’s kitchenz (or den)—no matter what the season, and for no special reason. Jack Bowers

Jack Sohmer, Jazz Times, Storm Before The Calm, Sea Breeze Jazz/ SB-2104, May 2001: “All the charts emphasize straightahead swing with notable solos by arrangers, Walt Gwardyak (piano), Chris Merz (alto), Mastroianni (soprano & alto) & Phil Person (trumpet), as well as tenormen Kris Jensen and Charles Socci, trombonists Tim Atherton and Peter McEachern and trumpeter Rex Denton.
Jack Bowers, Cadence Magazine July 1996: “Hearing this disc for the first time was, to put it succinctly, an unexpected pleasure of the first rank. These gentlemen can flat out play!”

Jack Bowers, 1998: Version 3.0, Brownstone/BRCD954 “I’ve only heard one recording by pianist Walt Gwardyak’s remarkably tight-knit and immutably swinging band, but that provided more than enough evidence to render a verdict in its favor. One of the finest recordings of 1996. An exceptionally well-written studio date.”

Owen McNally, The Hartford Courant, 1995: “Version 3.0 shows the NEJE is an alliance that can proudly carry the big band tradition of swing, excellence and uncompromising non-commercial verve into the 21st century.”

Greg Haymes, Times Union, Albany, NY, 1995: Version 3.0 “…the 16 piece band offered a solidly swinging 90 minute performance that studiously avoided the usual big band clichés. This band presented a full concert program of incisive original compositions”

Steve Starger, The Hartford Advocate, 1996: Version 3.0 “The NEJE is front-loaded with top-drawer players who tackle intricate and imaginative arrangements with skill and humor.”

Jayne Keedle, The Hartford Advocate, 1995: “The NEJE just returned from the 10th International Festival of Jazz in Corinth, Greece. The crowd loved the music so much they brought the band back for two encores. The Hartford-based band, which is dedicated to playing new music, was the first American ensemble to play at the festival.”

Kevin Mack, The Hartford Courant, 1994: “Walter Gwardyak’s Suite for Jazz Band and Orchestra. This substantial work, in three movements, bears little resemblance to early progenitors like Gershwin, Whiteman, Grofe or even Rolf Lieberman of the 1950’s. Gwardyak’s style is more akin to an uneasy co-existence of Dizzy Gillespie bebop and the advanced harmonies of densely-constructed modern classical music of Olivier Messaien. There was a bit of Gordon Jenkins orchestral sound, too, for those who may remember the Manhattan Suite. Manifold influences in this well constructed Suite are all to the good, for the work stands as a fine example of music written in late 1980’s pluralistic America.”

The New England Jazz Ens. Wishes You a Cookin’ Christmas Sea Breeze Jazz SB-2125

by Jack Bowers

www.seabreezejazz.com

www.brownstonerecordings.com

www.hartfordconservatory.org

www.jonathanmele.com

www.twohorns.com

philperson.com

wgjazz.com

“…Walt Gwardyak’s remarkably tight knit and immutably swinging band…an exceptionally well written studio date”
Jack Bowers, Cadence Magazine

“With its trademark mix of swing and sophistication, the Hartford-based regional band displays its musical depth and expressive range…”
Owen McNally, The Hartford Courant:

In 1994, the band received an NEA grant to travel to the 10th annual jazz festival in Corinth, Greece.  Following this trip, Gwardyak wrote the piece “Blouzo” for the band with extended solos for the trombone section.

The New England Jazz Ensemble has recorded 4 CDs, including a live recording at the Pittsfield Jazz Festival in 2005 and a Christmas CD featuring the Duke Ellington Nutcracker and other holiday jazz recorded in 2003.  The first and second CDs, as well as the 2005 Pittsfield CD, feature original arrangements and compositions by the band’s composers.

The band has performed with numerous guest artists including, Thomas Chapin, Phil Wilson, Dick Johnson, John Allmark, Shawn Monteiro, George Masso, Art Baron, Nick Brignola, Gerry Neiwood, Ali Ryerson, and Giacomo Gates.

The New England Jazz Ensemble has played in numerous jazz festivals, including the Greater Hartford Jazz Festival, as well as eight consecutive performances of the Ellington Nutcracker with the Hartford Conservatory dance department.

Location:
Canton High School
Symonds Avenue
Canton, CT
(860) 693-7707

Tickets $12.00 General Admission
Student $8.00

Friday, November 30, 2007 @ 8 PM
Saturday, December 1, 2007, @ 2 PM & 8 PM
Sunday, December 2, 2 PM
The New England Jazz Ensemble
Septet & The Hartford Conservatory
Dancers
Present a full stage performance
of Duke Ellington’s Jazz Nutcracker
A jazz version of the original
story by P. I. Tchaikovsky

Location:
St. Joseph’s College
Hartford, CT

December 1st. and 2nd, 2006 at 8 PM
Ellington Nutcracker
St. Joseph’s College
West Hartford, CT

December 13th, 2006 12-1 PM
Live Radio Broadcast WICN FM
Mechanics Hall
Worcester, MA

Location:
Polish National Home, 60 Charter Oak Avenue, Hartford, CT.

Snacks and drinks available during the show.
Tickets sales on the website, at 860-243-9964, and at the door.
Cabaret seating:  $25.
Student tickets:  $10.

New England Jazz Ensemble

The New England Jazz Ensemble is a large jazz orchestra comprising regionally based artists.  The group features original and contemporary jazz arrangements and compositions.  Much of the band’s material is generated by the ensemble’s members.  It is a performance group as well as a composer’s forum.

The Goals of the New England Jazz Ensemble

* To perpetuate the uniquely American large jazz ensemble as an art medium

* To encourage the writing of new work for large jazz ensemble

* To reach culturally diverse audiences and to educate the public about jazz

* To share the band’s wealth of expertise with the public in the form of concerts,
educational forums and programs, guest performances and recordings

* To support the opportunities for professional jazz artists to be employed
in their specific areas of expertise in order to maintain the integrity of
the jazz community in our region.

Board of Directors

Timothy Atherton

Robert Balchunas,  President

Ed Bride, Secretary

Claudia Bell, Vice President

Walter Gwardyak

Steven Bulmer

Jeffrey W. Holmes

Gregory Laxer, Vice President

Ann Mastroianni, Treasurer

John Mastroianni

Tracy Wilson

Advisory Board

Walter Mayo

Peter McEachern

David Wampler