Aardvark Featured Link:
FiLmprov--an ever evolving experiment in the union of film, musical improvisation, poetry and beyond.
http://filmprov.tripod.com
 
New CD Released:
Trumpet Madness CD Released to Critical Acclaim
Aardvark's latest CD recording Trumpet Madness was released internationally in spring 2005 with a CD release concert celebration at MIT on April 30, 2005. Released on the prestigious London-based LEO Records label (long recognized for its commitment to challenging postmodern music), this is the band's eighth CD. Three of these have been released on the Leo Lab Records label.

Trumpet Madness features several wonderful trumpeters, as well as the entire Aardvark Orchestra in both solo and collective improvisational roles. Among the trumpeters are music director Mark Harvey, soloing on Taylor Ho Bynum's Concerto for Orchestra and Improviser, Berlin-based trumpeter Rajesh Mehta, featured on Harvey's Spirals which was written especially for Mehta and his percussion collaborator Paul Lovens, and trumpeters Harvey, Ho Bynum, Mehta, Greg Kelley, and Jeanne Snodgrass on the title tune Trumpet Madness, an improvisational tour de force. K.C. Dunbar, Jimmy Leach, and Eric Dahlman round out our trumpetistic panorama as they are heard to advantage on several other tracks on the recording.

All selections were recorded in live performance, six of the seven cuts are world premieres, and throughout, they showcase the band's unique approach to blending spontaneous creation within complex structures. While there is a trumpet concept at work here, listeners will soon discover that Trumpet Madness leads inevitably and delightfully to total Aardvark madcap music-making of the highest order. To paraphrase American painter Stuart Davis, who was speaking of the influence of Guillaume Dufay's music on his abstractionist style, "trumpets used like voices/ real crazy syncopation."
Click here for CD Ordering Information

Spring Concerts in Review:
Aardvark's Annual MIT Spring Concert
Celebrate the CD Release: Trumpet Madness,
Salute Duke Ellington, and
Enjoy New Music for Jazz Orchestra — Sat. April 30
For its April 30th concert, part of the national observance of Jazz Appreciation Month, Aardvark celebrated the international release of its eighth CD recording, Trumpet Madness. [More CD info above.] The concert included music from this new CD, a brief salute to Duke Ellington, whose birthday is observed every April 29th, and recent extended works for jazz orchestra.
 
Joining the band for the Ellington salute was our newest vocal sensation, Grace Hughes, who made her Aardvark debut at the most recent Christmas Concert to enthusiastic audience acclaim. The AJO reprised Mark Harvey's composition No Walls, also debuted on that holiday concert. The piece is inspired by and dedicated to Doctors Without Borders, and the title has an Ellingtonian resonance as well.
 
Finally, the band presented the Boston-area premiere of Modern Invention on this spring concert [see story below]. Vocalist Jay Clayton once again joined with Aardvark for this performance.
Sat. April 30 — More info: 617.452.3205
MIT (Directions), Kresge Auditorium — Free Admission

Aardvark Premiered New Commissioned Work
For National Conference of the Organization of American Kodaly Educators
Aardvark presented a feature concert presentation as part of the National Conference of the Organization of American Kodaly Educators [OAKE] meeting on March 11 at the Springfield Marriott Hotel. OAKE commissioned Mark Harvey to create a new work especially for this occasion, and Harvey took inspiration for his composition titled Modern Invention from the Revolutionary-War era Boston composer, William Billings.

The commission is funded in part by a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts and Meet the Composer, Inc., with support from ASCAP, the Virgil Thomson Fund, and with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts. Joining Aardvark for this premiere performance was the superb improvisational vocalist Jay Clayton. The band also performed Duke Ellington's It's Freedom with another superb vocalist, Pamela Wood, as soloist and narrator.
Springfield, MA Springfield Marriott Hotel, March 11, 9 PM

Fall-Winter Season Re-Cap:
Aardvark's 32nd Annual Christmas Concert
Featuring Grace Hughes, Benefitting Doctors Without Borders
Emmanuel Church —Sun., Dec. 19
A Brief History: For more than three decades, the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra has presented an annual Christmas Concert, hailed as a venerable holiday tradition by the Boston Globe. Aardvark’s inaugural performance was a Christmas concert in 1973 to benefit the Chelsea Fire Fund, and every yuletide since then, this event has spread musical holiday cheer while raising funds for a worthy cause.

The concert featured a typically Aardvarkian eclectic mix, from traditional carols in jazz arrangements to music in the spirit of the season by Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, and Charles Ives. Music director Mark Harvey premiered his new composition inspired by and dedicated to Doctors Without Borders, titled "No Walls". And, as if this was not enough, we introduced vocalist Grace Hughes in her first appearance with Aardvark. She has sung the national anthem at Fenway Park and brought a wonderful new dimension to our Christmas Concert tradition. We thank everyone who joined us for this very special event on December 19th at Boston’s Emmanuel Church.

Sun., Dec. 19, 7:30 PM  |  Admission: $15
For more information, call 617/ 452-3205.
Emmanuel Church website

American Values Concert
Getting ready musically for the election—Sun., Sept. 26
With a platform dedicated to truth and the democratic process, Aardvark performed its award-winning piece Scamology, the cautionary tale of the Constitutional Funk Blues, and the dangerous dance moods of the Big Oil Tango. The concert also featured the jazz orchestra premiere of Mark Harvey's extended work entitled Beyond, an expansive, multi-stylistic composition inspired by and dedicated to that master of freedom of expression, Duke Ellington, whose credo was to move beyond category, to move beyond that which divides us, in music and in life.
Sun., Sept. 26, 8 PM  |  For More Info: 617.452-3205
MIT (Directions), Killian Hall . $10 donation requested
 
Bates College Ellington Tribute Concert
Another Standing-Room-Only program:
Superlative standards and new tributes to Duke Ellington—Sun., Oct. 16
Following a Standing-Room-Only reception for its concert at Colby College last winter, Aardvark returned to the Great State of Maine with an appearance in The Olin Arts Center at BATES COLLEGE. The program celebrated the genius of DUKE ELLINGTON, featuring well-known standards like Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Solitude as well as selections from two of his suites The River and Such Sweet Thunder. Music director Mark Harvey's composition Beyond was also performed, in tribute to the Grand Duke of Ellington.
Sun., Oct. 16, 8 PM
For More Info & Reservations, please call 207/786-6135
Bates College, Olin Arts Center. Tickets are $8

32nd Season Summary: The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra began its thirty-second season with a fall series celebrating topical themes: election year politics, commemorations of the 30th anniversary of Duke Ellington's passing, and a tribute to the global relief organization, Doctors Without Borders. Two evenings feature small improvisational groups drawn from the larger ensemble. Aardvark dedicates this fall season to the memory of Lynette Linden, our devoted box office manager and enthusiastic fan of the band for many years, who passed away this spring.
 

Aardvark Musicans Featured on National Film Project
Several members of Aardvark are featured on improvisational soundtracks to two silent films, part of a new DVD collection entitled "More Treasures from American Film Archives." These films were recently named to the prestigious National Film Register of the Library of Congress. "A Bronx Morning" features Aardvark music director and trumpeter Mark Harvey along with trombonist Jay Keyser and clarinet virtuoso Evan Ziporyn. "There It Is" features Harvey, saxophonists Phil Scarff and Peter Bloom, pianist Tim Ray, bassist John Funkhouser, and drummer Harry Wellott. The DVD set "More Treasures from American Film Archives," is an expansive array of shorts, feature films, and documentaries made between 1894 and 1931. A New York Times reviewer spoke of this new collection as "a world of unique beauty and expressivity." An earlier collection
"Treasures from American Film Archives" featured still other Aardvark players, saxophonist Arni Cheatham, trombonist/tubist Bill Lowe, guitarist Larry Carsman, bassist Jesse Williams, and drummer John Connelly, and trumpeter Harvey, on the soundtrack to "Negro Leagues Baseball," a documentary of the legendary Goose Tatum. For more information, visit www.filmpreservation.org or on our site, click here.

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