Jazz Articles about Jade Synstelien

Fat Cat Big Band: Meditations On The War...

by Mark Corroto
March 10, 2009

What makes a great big band record? Is it the writing or the arranging? Or maybe it is the playing of the musicians, which of course is the product of both the writing and the arranging.

Certainly a big band (like, say, a quartet) produces great music when it performs regularly as a working unit. For composer/arranger/guitarist Jade Synstelien, the opportunity to present big band jazz every week at New York's Fat Cat jazz club to upwards of ...