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CD
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MUTABLE 001CD
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"On the new release Celestial Green Monster, Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band -- assembled from Ho's favorite musicians with whom he had the pleasure and honor to work with since embarking upon a professional career in music in the 1980s -- perform both original compositions by Ho ('Liberation Genesis'; 'Blues to the Freedom Fighters'; 'The Struggle for a New World Suite') as well as arrangements of two pop culture classics ('Spiderman Theme'; 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida'). The quintessential American orchestra is not the symphony, but the big band. Retaining the essential features of swing and African-descended rhythmic vitality and complexity, improvisation (both individual and collective) with sophisticated compositional imagination, elasticity and experimentation with timbre and harmony, expansive and epic themes, the big band makes for as much a 'joyful noise' as the ubiquitous small band. Though the composer/arranger may start with sketches and minimally notated material, the opportunity and challenge for a broader and more extensive palette of orchestral voicing, contrapuntal techniques (both melodically and rhythmically), and magnified excitement, intensity, energy and explosive dynamic range ('from a whisper to a scream') continually make for the big band form an ideal vehicle of serious extended composition." The Green Monster Big Band: Fred Ho, leader/baritone sax; Bobby Zankel, Jim Hobbs, alto sax; Hafez Modirzadeh, Salim Washington, tenor sax; Stanton Davis, Brian Kilpatrick, Amir Elsaffar, trumpet; Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet; Robert Pilkington, Marty Wehner, Richard Harper, trombone; Earl MacIntyre, David Harris, contrabass trombone; Art Hirahara, piano, electronic keyboard; Wes Brown, electric and acoustic bass; Royal Hartigan, drum set. Guest Artists on In A Gadda Da Vida: Abraham Gomez-Delgado and Haleh Abghari (vocals); Mary Halvorson (electric guitar).
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