Results for "Octet"

Metropolitan Jazz Octet

Active since: 2014

The Metropolitan Jazz Octet (MJO) is the reawakening of a group that started in the 1950’s by Chicago saxophonist and arranger Tom Hilliard. 

From 1950 through mid-'80s Hilliard wrote many of the octets compositions. He worked with Chicago’s top arrangers and studio musicians expanding the library to 150-plus charts. In 1959 MJO recorded an album on the Argo label called “The Legend of Bix,” a tribute to 1920's great cornetist and composer Bix Beiderbecke. 

As a professor at De Paul University School of Music, Hilliard taught three current members of MJO to whom he bequeathed his complete library, passing the torch to the next generation. 

Florian Ross Octet: Tunes & Explorations

October 20, 2022

I love jazz octets. More than any other ensemble configuration, an octet shows off an arranger's stuff. Unlike a big band, an octet is fully exposed, with individual instruments coming and going rather than full sections broken into chords. In many ways, octets are little big bands—the skeletal version. As a listener, you get to hear ...

Octet

By Aram Shelton

Label: 482 Music
Released: 2014