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The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra
The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra: The Lights Suite
by Jack Bowers
A brief preamble: while spending last Thanksgiving with my wife’s sister and her family in Palo Alto, CA, I had the radio tuned to KCSMFM in San Mateo (a 24hour Jazz station, naturally) whose weekday noontime feature is an album played in its entirety without interruption. On this particular day the album chosen was by a group I’d not heard before, the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra. After listening for a few moments I thought to myself, “I’ve gotta get a ...
read moreMarcus Shelby Places Suite Exploring Negro League Baseball At The Heart Of "Transitions," Set For June 7 Release By MSO Records
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
Bassist, composer, and bandleader Marcus Shelby brings together three of his greatest passions—African-American history, baseball, and big-band jazz—on Transitions, the latest work by his 15-piece Marcus Shelby Orchestra, set for a June 7 release on his own MSO Records. While the album offers Shelby’s lush arrangements of classic tunes by Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Cole Porter, its centerpiece “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues” is an original four-part suite inspired by the history of Negro League Baseball. ...
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