Jazz Articles about Maria Schneider

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Maria Schneider Flies into Boston: "Look, Up in the Sky! It's an Orchestra!"

by Jason West
December 12, 2007

Maria Schneider Orchestra Berklee Performance HallBoston, Massachusetts November 17, 2007 The power of Maria Schneider's musical imagery calls to mind a variation on a superhero movie tagline: “You will believe a band can fly." And fly they did on what was their Boston debut, with the orchestra's diminutive blonde bandleader, adorned in matching black slacks and blouse, piloting her 18-piece supergroup and a capacity audience on an expansive, multifarious aural flight around the globe. ...

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Maria Schneider Orchestra: Sky Blue

by Michael P. Gladstone
December 11, 2007

It will be very surprising if Maria Schneider's Sky Blue is not named as one of the most treasured albums of 2007. The album brings together the teachings of her mentor, Gil Evans, and, to some extent, the sweeping panoramas of Aaron Copland into a majestic orchestral setting. There is no question that Schneider's contributions as a composer have never been so important, with these compositions inspired by her real life experiences, and performed by the ensemble of the Orchestra ...

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Maria Schneider: Raising the Bar

by Tom Greenland
December 6, 2007

Maria Schneider, one of the most innovative big band composer/arrangers of the past two decades, is on a roll--in an era of declining record sales and rising recording costs, she is flying high. Sky Blue (2007), her second release through ArtistShare, has garnered considerable accolades; largely fan-funded, the album is not only an artistic triumph but a product and paragon of the new jazz business model. In a recent conversation, Schneider shared her thoughts on femininity, musical influences, writing, audiences ...

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Maria Schneider: Sky Blue

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 24, 2007

La ArtistShare è una casa discografica che si fonda su di una idea produttiva intelligente alla quale, con successo, stanno aderendo molti artisti americani. In pratica si tratta di trovare fans e appassionati disponibili ad autotassarsi secondo diverse possibilità e impegni per ricoprire il ruolo di produttori di un progetto discografico sul quale l’artista ha un controllo pressoché completo. Questi micro-produttori assumono un ruolo importante in tutte le fasi del progetto e vengono costantemente aggiornati e coinvolti, potendo in qualche ...

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Maria Schneider Orchestra: Sky Blue

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
September 8, 2007

The warmest of accolades have already been heaped upon Maria Schneider's new record, and deservedly so. How, everyone seems to wonder, could Schneider possibly top the Grammy-winning Concert in the Garden (ArtistShare, 2004)? Forget that. How could she possibly top the first four minutes of “The Pretty Road," the track that opens Sky Blue? Somehow, Ingrid Jensen's long and suitably airy solo lifts the piece higher still. And then there are four more incredible numbers...Beyond the oft-remarked lineage ...

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Maria Schneider Orchestra: Sky Blue

by Budd Kopman
August 26, 2007

Maria Schneider and her orchestra (and yes, it is an orchestra and not a band) demonstrate everything that is right with ArtistShare specifically and jazz in general, with the miraculous Sky Blue being but the latest example. In a perfect world, ArtistShare would not have to exist, since record companies would deal honestly with the artist and music lovers would actually buy the records and not expect everything digital to be free. However, since ...

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Maria Schneider Orchestra: Sky Blue

by John Kelman
August 18, 2007

There's a reason that composer/bandleader Maria Schneider calls her large ensemble an orchestra. The term “big band suggests a number of inherent expectations relating to historical tradition. Schneider's group may be configured like a big band--five reeds, four trumpets, four trombones with an expanded rhythm section--but the music she writes delves into territories considerably farther afield. Sky Blue is a logical follow-up to her Grammy Award-winning Concert in the Garden (ArtistShare, 2004), but there's been significant evolution as well.

Even ...