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Brent Laidler

Brent attended Western Michigan University, majoring in Music Education with a minor in Composition. He also attended Red Wing Technical Institute for Band Instrument Repair, owns and operates Brent’s Bench, Inc. Band Instrument Repair Shop in Lafayette and has developed an extensive professional and collegiate faculty clientele during more than three decades of dedicated service to the industry. His endorsements include Purdue Bands, Jacobs School of Music, DePauw, Butler, Ball State Universities and the Indianapolis Symphony as well as three different DCI Corps and the International Trumpet Guild.

Brent is a Jazz Clinician and member of the Indiana Jazz Educator’s Association as well as being a composer and performer. He has performed and recorded with Randy Salman, Leonard Foy and Brent Wallarab from the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra with David Baker. He has appeared with Broadway artist Michael Mandel, Comedian/Impersonator Rich Little, instrumentalists Mark Buselli, Freddie Mendoza, Kenny Phelps, The Lafayette Symphony, and vocalists Kirby Shaw, Li (Tartell) Wilder, Regina Todd-Hicks and Amanda Overmyer from American Idol.

His 2017 CD, “No Matter Where Noir” featured a large ensemble and included the talents of two members of the Indianapolis Jazz Hall of Fame. It received worldwide airplay and made the Top 25 in three different major Jazz Charts.

Brent has been a staff arranger for two competitive marching bands, written music for commercials, video games and independent films. Working with TMG/5 Artists and Westlake Signal Group, he now has five film scores to his credit – having been seen and heard on Los Angeles Cable Television, the Pan-African Film Festival, and the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. “Then and Now – Single Engine Stations, Volume II” won a Telly Award in the Documentary Category.

His ongoing relationship with Westlake Signal Group includes themes for a television pilot, “No Right Turn,” and “Newswire L.A.” – an online news magazine broadcast every Wednesday at 11:pm on channel 36, Los Angeles Cable Television.

On Saturday nights from 11pm to midnight he can be heard as host of “The Night Shift” Jazz music program on WBAA.

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6
Album Review

Brent Laidler: Wouldn't Be Here Without You

Read "Wouldn't Be Here Without You" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


Stan Getz once said of the best bossa players that they could swing hard without appearing to try. It is also obvious that one of the few good things to come out of the Covid pandemic has been music intended to calm things down a bit. For example, John Pizzarelli's Better Days Ahead(Ghostlight Records, 2021), but there are others as well. If you take “swing" and “calm" and combine them, you end up with Brent Laidler's enjoyable and melliflous recording. ...

2
Album Review

Brent Laidler: Wouldn't Be Here Without You

Read "Wouldn't Be Here Without You" reviewed by Patrick Burnette


As we slip deeper into the twenty-first century, jazz is a very broad church indeed, an umbrella term referring to dozens of sub-genres and styles. Even with all those tags and labels at our disposal, however, sometimes an album can be a little hard to pigeonhole. Guitarist/arranger/composer Brent Laidler's latest album, Wouldn't Be Here Without You, seems simple enough to categorize at first: it is straight-ahead, small combo mainstream jazz, right? But listen a while and you'll discover that the ...

24
Album Review

Brent Laidler: Wouldn't Be Here Without You

Read "Wouldn't Be Here Without You" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Although mostly unnamed, those honored on Indiana-based guitarist Brent Laidler's Wouldn't Be Here Without You are friends, mentors and fellow musicians who have offered encouragement and support on his spiritual and musical journey through life, several of whom comprise the sextet on Laidler's second album as leader. Besides playing guitar (and repairing them by day), Laidler wrote and arranged all of the album's ten numbers, which are rhythmically strong and melodically pleasing. Some are vaguely reminiscent of ...

6
Album Review

Brent Laidler: No Matter Where Noir

Read "No Matter Where Noir" reviewed by Patrick Burnette


Some jazz albums are notable solely for the well-known personnel featured. These recordings excite interest based on name recognition alone. Even if albums like this lack a coherent vision, fans are willing to pick them up just to hear their favorite players at work. In contrast, composer/guitarist Brent Laidler's No Matter Where Noir , while featuring top-shelf playing and soloing, focuses on creating a cohesive and entertaining vibe throughout. It's a “sum greater than the parts" album, and ...

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