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Sara Jacovino

NYC based trombonist Sara Jacovino is an ambitious young composer and arranger who cut her teeth in the renowned One O'Clock Lab Band at the University of North Texas. Hailed by the likes of David Baker as having a completely unique compositional and performing voice, Sara has already drawn the attention of many seasoned professionals. In the fall of 2008, Sara made the move to NYC where she joined the BMI jazz composer's workshop led by Jim McNeely. In June of 2009, Sara was awarded the BMI Foundation's Charlie Parker Composition Award/Manny Album Commission after just her first season in the workshop. Earlier in 2009, Sara received the Airmen of Note's Sammy Nestico Award in jazz composition and was awarded Downbeat Magazine's Student Music Award in the category of jazz arranging. Similarly in 2008, Sara’s received two Downbeat Awards, including best Original Song and best Extended Composition. She also earned invitations to the prestigious Better Carter Jazz Ahead residency and Ravinia Steans Institute residency, while being awarded the Kai Winding jazz ensemble prize and selected as one of three finalists in the International Trombone Association’s J.J. Johnson solo jazz trombone competition. Sara can be seen leading her original quintet and big band as well as her recently co-founded jazz philharmonic, The Orchestral Reeducation Commission. Sara earned both a BMus and MMus degree from UNT while studying composition with Neil Slater and Paris Rutherford and trombone with Steve Wiest and Tony Baker.

Sara has shared the stage with jazz greats such as: Steve Davis, Slide Hampton, Rufus Reid, Wayne Bergeron, John Abercrombie, Pete Christlieb, Bill Holman, Rich Perry, Lou Marini, Steve Wiest, Adonis Rose, Jim Pugh, Ejiro Nakagawa, Phil Woods, Carmen Bradford, Bernard Wright, Robert "Sput" Searight, Lynn Seaton, Stefan Karlsson, Marlena Shaw, and Sherrie Maricle and the Diva Jazz Orchestra to name a few.

She can be heard on the albums "Lab 2008," "Lab 2007," "Lab 2006" and "Live at Blues Alley" by the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band; "The Best of the Big O" by the University of North Texas Two O'Clock Lab Band; and "Bring Us the Bright," "The Only Constant," "The World is Getting Smaller" and "Real to Reel" by the Jazz/World/Fusion Ensemble Snarky Puppy.

Gear

Edwards Jazz horn


Tags

35
Album Review

Diva Jazz Orchestra: "30": Live at Dizzy's Club

Read ""30": Live at Dizzy's Club" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The “30" in the title of the superlative all-woman Diva Jazz Orchestra's latest album stands for 30 years, which, believe it or not, is how long the orchestra and its remarkable drummer and leader, Sherrie Maricle, have been up and running and making beautiful music at home and abroad. Among U.S.-based big bands, it would seem that only Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman have had longer runs than that. Fast company indeed. So is Diva ready for comparisons? ...

36
Album Review

John La Barbera Big Band: Grooveyard

Read "Grooveyard" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Composer/arranger John La Barbera has been at the top of his game for more than half a century, and Grooveyard is simply another example of his undiminished artistry. Besides arranging everything--superbly, as always--La Barbera wrote six of the session's ten charming songs, escorting other treasures by Carl Perkins, Dave Brubeck, Curtis Fuller and Elvin Jones. As he writes his handsome and colorful big-band charts, La Barbera is always careful to observe Rule No. 1: they have to ...

5
Album Review

The John La Barbera Big Band: Grooveyard

Read "Grooveyard" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello


The geometry, if you will, of a terrific big band recording is such that the three major elements--the players, the arrangements, and the performance--balance in every regard. Grooveyard from the John La Barbera Big Band is such an offering. The album features ten masterfully selected, arranged, and performed selections, each containing outstanding section, solo, and ensemble playing. Wes Montgomery's “Grooveyard" launches a hip, swinging first course in which tenor man Pat La Barbera and guitarist Brandon Coleman ...

34
Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: Swings Broadway

Read "Swings Broadway" reviewed by Jack Bowers


At the ripe old age of thirty (closer to a hundred in big-band years), the superlative New York-based, all-female DIVA Jazz Orchestra remains as frisky as a newborn colt, swinging up, down and around Broadway with abandon on its thirteenth album, a brisk and colorful tribute to the Great White Way that shines brightly from start to finish. The album opens and closes in a mid-1950s vein, raising the curtain with Steven Feifke's breezy, well-grooved arrangement of ...

2
Album Review

Joel Harrison: America at War

Read "America at War" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


"È tutta la vita che il mio paese conduce tragiche e futili invasioni straniere. Ho sentito che dovevo scrivere su questo fatto, infondere nella mia nuova musica la sua dolorosa eredità." Queste riflessioni aprono il nuovo disco di Joel Harrison, ritornato a sette anni di distanza da Infinite Possibility a guidare un ensemble orchestrale. La storia bellica degli Stati Uniti è piuttosto lunga: in 245 anni ha combattuto 123 conflitti militari vivendo solo 18 anni in completa pace. ...

7
Album Review

Earl MacDonald: Open Borders

Read "Open Borders" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Open Borders brings to the fore Canadian-born pianist Earl MacDonald's burnished tentet in a program that consists of eleven sunlit and swinging themes, five of which were composed by the leader. Besides writing, MacDonald did most of the arranging, and he excels in both arenas, as he does on piano (most notably on the standards “Blame It On My Youth" and “East of the Sun" as well as on Percy Mayfield's R&B classic “Hit the Road Jack" and his own ...

4
Album Review

Earl MacDonald: Open Borders

Read "Open Borders" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Not many piano led ensembles finds the pianist laying as far back in the musical dialogue as Earl MacDonald, who doesn't come anywhere near an extended solo until “Miles Apart" and Percy Mayfield's Ray Charles blow- out “Hit The Road Jack" (tracks five and six respectively). But that's just fine given that MacDonald has charted the conversations and man oh man, do these arrangements crackle with spirit.From the high-flying “Dig In Buddy" to the exhilarating Latin flavors “Dolphy ...

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Primary Instrument

Trombone

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Grooveyard

Origin Records
2023

buy

Swings Broadway

Diva Records
2022

buy

America at War

Sunnyside Records
2021

buy

Open Borders

Death Defying Records
2017

buy

Grooveyard

From: Grooveyard
By Sara Jacovino

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