FivePlay Jazz Quintet

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The Back Story Tony: Let me tell you how it all started: Spring 1977: I got my first glimpse of Laura in Latin American music class at Berklee College of Music. Fast-forward to the end of the summer, we run into each other on Mass Ave near Symphony Hall. I tell her “We could make beautiful music together.” (Really.) She puts together a session, and I think “This girl has got a “sound”! But, it’s more than that: it’s love. Laura: I knew it must be love when I’m playing a dismal dive way out in the sticks, and Tony shows up there to see me! A few weeks later, we play our first gig together. There’s a fight in the club, the cops show up, we have to flee out the back door, in the chaos I lose one of my shoes, and I’ve never so much fun! I know we’re meant for each other. Tony: Zoom ahead a few years. I come home from rehearsing with John Horner’s American Dream Jazz Band and tell Laura “There’s this drummer…” Alan might have been out of his teens by then. I’m not sure, but the metric fluidity, huge ears, understanding of form, and the humor, all were completely arrived. Laura: Meanwhile, I play a casual-the band is terrible, but I’m knocked out by their amazing singer, Emily Norman. I persuade her to quit, and Tony and I and form our own quintet, Spiral Dance, with Emily and Alan. We do unusual arrangements of standards, and our own originals, gigging around Boston and New England. Tony: A few years later Laura comes home from a rehearsal, saying “There was this sax player there…” She starts playing in Dave Tidball’s band Minotaur, four horns, Dave’s original music. I go to one of their concerts and our boy sounds rather amazing, lyrical, agile. He even plays soprano sax in tune – impressive! Tony: Now it’s 1984-Laura and I get married and move to the Bay Area. Alan and Dave follow out to the West Coast soon after, so we put together Triceratops, the three-horned jazz sextet, playing all original music by Dave, Laura and me. Several years of gigs, concerts, festivals and a CD ensue. Somewhere in there, I play with Paul Smith, and tell Laura “There’s this bass player…this guy Knows Things.” Laura: Some years later: Tony’s switched from woodwinds to guitar, and he and I have been writing lots of music. We’ve both been doing other projects, but we want to get back to playing our originals. So, we put together successor to Triceratops: FivePlay, with Dave, Alan, and Paul. And now we’ve recorded two CDs, with another one coming soon.

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