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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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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 ...
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Coleman formed her first trio in 1990 and her first quintet three years later, both in Los Angeles, where ...
read moreRecent Listening: Cecilia Coleman
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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 ...
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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.
Primary Instrument
Keyboards
Willing to teach
Beginner to advanced
Credentials/Background
Jazz piano CSULB 1996-present
Josh Nelson
pianoPhotos
Music
Smile
From: SmileBy Cecilia Coleman