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Cecilia Coleman

CECILIA COLEMAN BIG BAND Long known as an inventive pianist and a skilled composer, a year ago Cecilia Coleman also became a significant big band leader. She told her friend trumpeter-music publisher Don Sickler that she would love to write some big band arrangements and asked for his thoughts. “The most helpful thing that Don said to me was to make sure that I start with a sketch. I looked at my arrangements for my quintet and realized that they were all potential sketches for a big band. I wrote two arrangements right away and then it snowballed.” “I first met Cecilia when I toured Los Angeles with T.S. Monk,” recalls Sickler. “I had heard that she was a great writer. After she moved to New York, it turned out that she lived three blocks from me so we became better acquainted. She is a marvelous and dedicated pianist with a great touch, she reads everything, is very easy to work with, and is dead serious about music. She has written 30 or 40 arrangements for her orchestra and is a bonafide big band composer with something original to say.” After having written many arrangements in a short period of time, Cecilia naturally wanted to hear what the music sounded like, so she started her own “What essentially started as a rehearsal band quickly turned into a serious endeavor due in large part to the overwhelming support I received from the have met these past 12 years. After rehearsals, they would call or write me and say how much they enjoyed my music and tell me that I had to keep this something new and different. They have been so supportive and enthusiastic which makes this very rewarding for me. The big band has become the love of big band in Jan. 2010. musicians I work with and going, that it was my life.” “Cecilia has a completely fresh approach to big band writing. It is not the same old thing and I am grateful to be a part of it. Besides, she's the nicest band leader I ever worked with.” - bass trombonist Joe Randazzo The 18-piece Cecilia Coleman Big Band, which includes six saxophonists including a soprano player, has a regular gig at the Garage in Greenwich Village. They have also played at the Zinc Bar, Fat Cat, the St. Peters Jazz at Midday concert series, and the Baha'i Center.

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24
Album Review

Angela DeNiro: Swingin' with Legends 2

Read "Swingin' with Legends 2" reviewed by Jack Bowers


On Swingin' with Legends 2, her fourth recorded collaboration with arranger (and husband) Ron Aprea's big band, vocalist Angela DeNiro sings beautifully--and receives a lot of help from her friends, especially guests Ken Peplowski on clarinet, Randy Brecker on trumpet and Lew Tabackin on tenor sax and flute. And what a band! Well-stocked with stars who are eager to fly whenever Aprea raises his baton. Not that DeNiro needs much help. She is quite simply a marvelous ...

4
Album Review

Angela DeNiro: Swingin' with Legends 2

Read "Swingin' with Legends 2" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Vocalist Angela DeNiro sings with blue-ribbon vocal abilities. This is evident in her release Swingin' With Legends 2 . Accompanied by the Ron Aprea Big Band, supplemented by special guests Randy Brecker, Ken Peplowski and Lew Tabackin, she sails through fourteen love songs written by some of the greatest composers of the American Songbook, providing a deep understanding and command of the material she performs. The album opens with “New York City Blues," a not frequently ...

2
Album Review

Angela DeNiro with the Ron Aprea Big Band: Swingin' with Legends 2

Read "Swingin' with Legends 2" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello


Swingin' with Legends 2 from Angela DeNiro with the Ron Aprea Big Band, is a follow-up to their first Legends effort in 1988. The album, as was its Grammy-entered predecessor, is a quintessentially classic big band recording featuring a fine female vocalist. The fourteen tunes here are predominantly from the Great American Songbook, with jazz greats Randy Brecker, Lew Tabackin, and Ken Peplowski delivering outstanding cameos. The opener “New York Blues" is a flat-out swinger with DeNiro belting ...

5
Album Review

Bill Warfield and the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra: Smile

Read "Smile" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Having no idea what to expect from an ensemble labeled the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra, the game plan must be to advance with caution, as any orchestra with trumpeter Bill Warfield at the helm can't be all bad. After listening, it becomes clear that the game plan was sound and the premise accurate: Smile, the HKFO's second recording, isn't all bad. The question is: did Warfield and the orchestra have its own game plan? If snatching every ingredient within reach ...

276
Album Review

Cecilia Coleman Big Band: Oh Boy!

Read "Oh Boy!" reviewed by Edward Blanco


The phrase “Oh boy," can be a statement of excitement, an expression of an event that grabs your attention or, in this case, an appropriate reaction to the swinging orchestrations from the Cecilia Coleman Big Band. Oh Boy! is a powerful draw and the debut album from pianist/composer Coleman's new group, presenting thundering big band music of a contemporary nature. Best known for her various working quintet's that have produced five albums since 1992, Coleman formed the group in January ...

175
Album Review

The Cecilia Coleman Quintet: Images

Read "Images" reviewed by Jim Santella


This is pianist Cecilia Coleman's first release as leader since moving to New York. The personnel in her modern mainstream quintet has changed and they've laid down a program of fresh new compositions for this, her seventh release overall, but it's still the same kind of dynamic sound that grabs you by the shirt collar and pounds your chest with passion.

Coleman formed her first trio in 1990 and her first quintet three years later, both in Los Angeles, where ...

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67

Recording

Recent Listening: Cecilia Coleman

Recent Listening: Cecilia Coleman

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Cecelia Coleman Big Band, Oh Boy! (PandaKat). Before she moved to New York 13 years ago, Coleman established a solid reputation as a pianist and arranger in her native southern California. Studies with Charlie Shoemake and Tom Kubis provided a solid theoretical foundation for imaginative charts that she wrote for a variety of small groups she fronted or played with in Los Angeles. With New York's pool of accomplished jazz players to choose from, she expanded her arranging scope and ...

By EDWARD BLANCO, Published: September 5, 2011

The phrase "Oh boy," can be a statement of excitement, an expression of an event that grabs your attention or, in this case, an appropriate reaction to the swinging orchestrations from the Cecilia Coleman Big Band. Oh Boy! is a powerful draw and the debut album from pianist/composer Coleman's new group, presenting thundering big band music of a contemporary nature. Best known for her various working quintet's that have produced five albums since 1992, Coleman formed the group in January 2010 after writing several big band charts for others which in turn, inspired a rehearsal band of her own.

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Primary Instrument

Keyboards

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

Jazz piano CSULB 1996-present

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Swingin' with Legends...

Early Autumn Productions
2023

buy

Smile

Planet Arts Records
2020

buy

Oh Boy!

Self Produced
2011

buy

Early Autumn

Point of Departure, WMPG-FM
2011

buy

Damian with Brian...

Cherrywood Records
2010

buy

Images

Interplay Records
2007

buy

Smile

From: Smile
By Cecilia Coleman

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