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Todd Bashore

Todd Bashore was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He received his bachelor’s degree in music from Duke University where he studied saxophone, composition and arranging with Paul Jeffrey. Upon graduation, Todd moved to New York City to study with jazz legends Jimmy Heath and Roland Hanna at Queens College, where he received his master’s degree. Todd has been active in the New York jazz scene ever since, performing and recording with David Berger, the Captain Black Big Band, the CTI All-Star Band, Orrin Evans, Pedro Giraudo, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, the Mambo Legends Orchestra, matchbox twenty, Christian McBride, the New York City Ballet, Chico O’Farrill, Valery Ponomarev, Bobby Sanabria, Bruce Springsteen, Charles Tolliver, Bebo Valdéz, Max Weinberg, and many others.

Recent tours include a trip to Taiwan with the Charles Tolliver Sextet, an extended US tour with Max Weinberg, and an Asian tour with the Christian McBride Big Band.

Todd keeps busy as a composer & arranger writing for many projects including the Captain Black Big Band and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. He received an excellent review in the NY Times for an arrangement of Wave written for Slide Hampton. In July 2009 Todd arranged all of the music for the CTI All-Star Band premiered at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and released on a blu-ray DVD. In Feb. 2011 the NY Times positively reviewed one of Todd's arrangements for the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. In Dec. 2011 Todd arranged six movements of The Nutcracker for an all-star sax section featuring Branford Marsalis, Steve Wilson, Mark Gross and many others and also did all of the arrangements and transcriptions for a performance by Ballet Hispanico and the Afto Latin Jazz Orchestra at the Apollo Theater. Reed and mouthpiece manufacturer Vandoren has commissioned over 25 arrangements for saxophones and rhythm section from Todd over the past several years. Todd's arrangements can often be heard with the Captain Black Big Band on Monday nights at Smoke and recent recordings of Todd as an arranger and composer can be heard on Spirit of the Horn - Slide Hampton, It Was Beauty -Orrin Evans, A Mother’s Touch - Captain Black Big Band, and The Offense of the Drum - Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra.

Recent recordings of Todd on saxophone and flute include the 2012 Grammy award winning recording The Good Feeling - Christian McBride Big Band, Cordoba - Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra, Ven Baila Conmigo - the Latin Giants of Jazz, Relentless - Michael Dease, Emperor March: Live at the Blue Note - Charles Tolliver, Final Night at Birdland - the Chico O’Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra and Hopscotch, Todd’s debut recording as a leader, to be released soon.

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22
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 ...

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Album Review

Orrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: The Intangible Between

Read "The Intangible Between" reviewed by Paul Rauch


Pianist Orrin Evans has a deep understanding of the unshakeable bond between fellowship, humanity and the creative process. That knowledge has guided him through creating a remarkable catalog of music as both a leader and sideman, along the way, experiencing the fellowship of a collective of musicians he often refers to as “The Village." The Village is indeed real, and most aptly expressed musically through the The Captain Black Big Band, Evans' ensemble of anywhere between nine and ...

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Album Review

Christian McBride: The Movement Revisited

Read "The Movement Revisited" reviewed by Chris May


The spring 2020 release of The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait Of Four Icons is the latest chapter in Christian McBride's inspirational salute to the African American civil rights movement and to four of its heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Embracing big band jazz, small group jazz, gospel, funk and chorale musics, together with spoken word passages, the suite employs an eighteen-piece band, the ten-piece Voices Of The Flame gospel choir, two lead ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Swingin' with Legends...

Early Autumn Productions
2023

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The Movement Revisited

Mack Avenue Records
2020

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The Intangible Between

Smoke Sessions Records
2020

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