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Leigh Pilzer

Saxophonist/arranger Leigh Pilzer has performed at many of Washington, DC’s top jazz venues, including Blues Alley, Twins Jazz, Westminster Presbyterian, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Jazz at the Garden, The Mansion at Strathmore, and the Takoma Park JazzFest, among others.

Leigh is a member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, DIVA, the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra, and Shannon Gunn and the Bullettes. With SJMO, DIVA, and the National Symphony Orchestra she has toured across the United States and in Austria, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Holland, and Russia. She also freelances with a variety of ensembles in the mid-Atlantic region.

Leigh’s arrangements have been performed by the DC-area premier military jazz ensembles and by college and professional jazz ensembles and brass quintets throughout the country. DIVA has recorded several of Leigh’s big band arrangements: two can be heard on DIVA’s most recent CD, A Swingin’ Life (2014) and two more are included on the band’s first all-original release Special Kay (2016). Another was featured on the soundtrack for Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular (2014). Other arranging credits include large and small ensemble originals and arrangements on Introducing…, It Don’t Mean a Thing, and Bullettes and Friends by Shannon Gunn and the Bullettes; horn section writing for recordings by Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy; and orchestrations for the critically acclaimed show Maurice Hines is Tappin’ Thru Life.

Repertory performances and lecture recitals include “Collaboration in Jazz, Featuring the Music of Gerry Mulligan” and “The Music of The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Mary Lou Williams, and Melba Liston” with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra Quintet; “Sax in the City,” featuring the music of Benny Carter, Gerry Mulligan, and Lester Young with the SJMO saxophone and rhythm sections; and “Women in Jazz: The Early Years,” “The Music of Melba Liston,” and “Tribute to Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker” at the Washington Women in Jazz Festival.

Leigh holds a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition and Arranging from the Berklee College of Music and Master’s degrees in Jazz Studies and Saxophone Performance from The University of Maryland, College Park. After completing her academic work at Maryland she enrolled in the PhD program in Musicology with a major in Music Theory at The Catholic University of America. She later transferred to George Mason University where she is currently working on a DMA and is a recipient of the merit-based Presidential Scholarship. Leigh has served on the faculties of the University of Maryland and Towson University, where she has taught Jazz Theory, Jazz Arranging, and Jazz History.

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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? ...

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 ...

30
Album Review

The Scott Silbert Big Band: Jump Children

Read "Jump Children" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The best music, in jazz or any other genre, is and should be timeless. To prove the point, the Scott Silbert Big Band celebrates the songs of a bygone era on its debut album, Jump Children, refreshing a number of memorable themes from the '30s, '40s and '50s and underscoring their relevance in an ultra-modern twenty-first century environment. His goal, Silbert writes, was “to represent the fantastic musicianship of the artists [who] originally performed these works," venerated masters such as ...

7
Album Review

Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra: Bernstein Reimagined

Read "Bernstein Reimagined" reviewed by Jack Bowers


This impressive anthology by the superb Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra is not so much Bernstein Reimagined as Bernstein Unleashed. The jazz component in Leonard Bernstein's memorable compositions for symphony orchestra, Broadway shows, films and even liturgical works always lay simmering just below the surface. As Bernstein is said to have confided to Duke Ellington: “Maybe that's really the difference between us. You write symphonic jazz, and I write jazz symphonies." However credible the remark, there is no doubt that the ...

3
Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: DIVA + The Boys

Read "DIVA + The Boys" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


The all-female DIVA Jazz Orchesta has a boy-meets-girls story threaded into its origin, as drummer Stanley Kay served as the impetus behind the group's formation. Therefore, it's only fitting that the ladies have a few gentleman over to join them for some high times in the music every now and then. This eight-song set, recorded live at Pittsburgh's Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in March of 2017, finds clarinetist Ken Peplowski, dearly departed trumpeter Claudio Roditi, trombonist Jay Ashby, and ...

6
Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: DIVA + the Boys

Read "DIVA + the Boys" reviewed by Jack Bowers


After more than twenty-five years as one of the world's most renowned big bands, drummer Sherrie Maricle's superlative all-female DIVA Jazz Orchestra invited a quartet of “the boys" onboard to help ensure the ensemble's twelfth album's success. Even though DIVA needs no consorts to affirm its unremitting mastery, it is nonetheless pleasurable to witness these talented women sharing the stage and blowing up a storm with such esteemed guest artists as clarinetist Ken Peplowski, trombonist Jay Ashby and (it hurts ...

4
Album Review

Leigh Pilzer: Strunkin'

Read "Strunkin'" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Leigh Pilzer is a baritone saxophonist from the Washington, DC area who has made a busy career for herself teaching, playing in various small groups and holding down the baritone chair in the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra and the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra. On this, her first CD as a leader, she fronts a small group made up of her bandmates from all three of those ensembles. This is a live recording of Pilzer's ...

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"The depth of knowledge and musical prowess Leigh Pilzer exhibits on the baritone saxophone, clearly displays she is more than ready for her debut, and Strunkin’ establishes her as a formidable presence not to be taken lightly." —H. Allen Williams, JazzTimes

"This CD shows off not only Leigh Pilzer’s talents as a musician and writer but the talent of everyone in her band. This makes a fine calling card for musicians who deserve to be better known." —All About Jazz

"Strunkin’ purveys the straight-ahead jazz torch, showing a modern generation what makes this classic genre so iconic and timeless." —Blogcritics

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Jump Children

Self Produced
2022

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Swings Broadway

Diva Records
2022

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DIVA + the Boys

MCG Jazz
2020

buy

Strunkin'

Self Produced
2016

buy

Dream With Me

From: Bernstein Reimagined
By Leigh Pilzer

Videos

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