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Mark Patterson

Mark Patterson, a Convergence member since 2000, attempts to keep a variety of music playing on his collection of twentieth-century trombones. He explored the roads of Japan with section-mates Jim Pugh, Bill Watrous, and David Taylor in Dave Matthews' Manhattan Jazz Orchestra; and toured the US and Europe with the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Barbra Streisand, and Steely Dan. He appeared or recorded with jazz artists Clark Terry, Sir Roland Hanna, Charli Persip, Jaki Byard, Dale Bruning, Eddie Palmieri, John Pizzarelli, Tom Pearson, The Westchester Jazz Orchestra, and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra (Mike Holober). In the concert hall, he appeared as soloist with the Ridgefield (CT) Symphony (including a trombone-premier of music from Eddie Sauter's Focus); and in the sections of such aggragations as the New York Pops, the Gotham Wind Symphony, the Concordia Orchestra, and the Central City Opera. He freely admits to having performed in Broadway shows (recently in "South Pacific" and "Spamalot"), and the trivia expert might detect his work in film scores. He champions new music with the ensemble Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He also collects pencils, and has studied how to use them with Donald Keats, Bob Brookmeyer, Manny Albam, and Jim McNeely. The results have been performed or recorded by Convergence, the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, the Gotham Wind Symphony, the BMI Jazz Composers' Orchestra, and the aforementioned Nobles, among others. Mark teaches at NYU and is a clinician at camps and festivals across the country.

Gear

A trombone. An acoustic bass. Many percussion instruments. Endorsements from both the Nyack Water District and New York City Water Department to use their water in my spray bottle.


Tags

7
Album Review

Pete McGuinness: Mixed Bag

Read "Mixed Bag" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


With Mixed Bag, Pete McGuinness once again affirms his place among the elite of modern big band composers and arrangers, presenting a luminous tapestry of jazz idioms that ranges from the exuberantly traditional to the adventurously modern. As the title suggests, the album is a delightful potpourri. However, rather than feeling scattered or unfocused, McGuinness weaves his eclectic inclinations into a coherent and emotionally engaging statement. He brings to bear not only the encyclopedic command of a seasoned jazz craftsman ...

27
Album Review

The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Mixed Bag

Read "Mixed Bag" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Award-winning arranger Pete McGuinness has chosen to name the fourth recording by his stellar New York-based Jazz Orchestra Mixed Bag, a term whose meaning may be construed as positive or less so, depending on the context. As he explains in the album's liner notes, McGuinness accentuates the positive, writing that to him, “Variety has always been the spice of life. I don't like the feeling of being pigeon-holed into a certain bag...For this project...I've included many 'bags' that I love ...

34
Album Review

Mike Holober & The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters

Read "This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" reviewed by Jack Bowers


This Rock We're On, acclaimed composer and pianist Mike Holober's 2024 recording as leader of the Gotham Jazz Orchestra, is challenging to summarize in mere words, as it consists of a multi-part suite (on two CDs) which blends jazz, classical and art songs in a thematic environment that uses a series of “imaginary letters" from a half dozen writers, artists and activists. Holober's orchestral response to them is the premise for “a meditation on the beauty of nature and the ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


È decisamente un periodo d'oro per l'orchestrazione jazz. Ai molti bandleader e arrangiatori emersi nel nuovo millennio, si aggiunge decisamente Christopher Zuar, che firma il secondo album confermando le doti espresse in Musings (Sunnyside), il debutto di otto anni fa. Con un diploma al New England Conservatory e un master alla Manhattan School of Music, Zuar aggiunge una spiccata fantasia nell'arricchire il modern mainstream orchestrale di nuove suggestioni. Questo progetto è stato concepito tra il 2017 e ...

31
Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Composer/arranger Christopher Zuar's second album, Exuberance, recounts in musical terms a twisting yet picturesque journey that began seven years earlier, in 2017, when Zuar first met his now-wife, the animator Anne Beal, at MacDowell, the famed artists' residency in New Hampshire. While the relationship “blooms" in winter, there are “moments between" and other inescapable detours until “certainty" erases any lingering doubts, “exuberance" carries the day and Zuar and Beal are united as one. Yes, the music is ...

3
Album Review

Mike Holober & the Gotham City Orchestra: This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters

Read "This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dopo gli ultimi superlativi album orchestrali (Balancing Act, Palmetto 2015 e Hiding Out, Zoho 2019) la nuova incisione di Mike Holober con la Gotham Jazz Orchestra non dovrebbe stupirci, eppure questo doppio album ci ha nuovamente colpito. L'aggiunta di Chris Potter, John Patitucci, Nir Felder e della cantante brasiliana Jamile Staevie Ayres all'orchestra rende infatti il progetto quanto mai esaltante. Questi nomi completano un organico già nutrito di solisti ragguardevoli come Marvin Stamm e Scott Wendholt alle trombe, ...

12
Album Review

Mike Holober: This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters

Read "This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


We live on a rock. A few billion years of the workings of the complexities of carbon chemistry put us here. The systems and intricacies of every element that has unfolded to maintain us should be respected and preserved. Mike Holober's This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters, featuring Holober and his Gotham Jazz Orchestra, digs into this theme in a sprawling, two-disc big band jazz outing. Like life itself, and the resulting ecosystems, this multi-movement suite--an effort that is the ...

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Primary Instrument

Trombone

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Mixed Bag

Summit Records
2025

buy

Exuberance

Tonal Conversations
2024

buy

This Rock We're On:...

Palmetto Records
2024

buy

Don't Let Go

Sunnyside Records
2022

buy

The Pan American...

Angel Face Records
2022

buy

It's All Your Fault

Savant Records
2021

buy

Lay of the Land

From: This Rock We're On: Imaginary...
By Mark Patterson

In Winter Blooms

From: Exuberance
By Mark Patterson

When There Were Trains

From: Balancing Act
By Mark Patterson

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