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Steve McQuarry

Composer, Arranger, Orchestrator and Keyboardist, McQuarry has performed with distinguished artists such as the late Dizzy Gillespie, Clare Fischer, Louie Bellson, Red Rodney (Charlie Parker), Tom Scott, the late John Cage, Laurie Anderson, Vinnie Colaiuta (Sting, Herbie Hancock, Frank Zappa), Nathan East (Eric Clapton, Herbie Hancock, Bob James), Bill Rich (Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Miles, Taj Mahal) and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

Currently, McQuarry performs and records on his indie label, Mandala Records, with his Jazz ensembles, Echelon, Mandala Orchestra, Mandala Octet, Resonance, Pangaea and Zazen, the Electronica group, Synsor and the new age group, Agharta.

McQuarry is an active member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), the performance rights organization, Broadcast Musicians, Inc. (BMI), the Electronic Music Foundation (EMF), the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers (ASMAC), the Society For Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) and Chamber Music America (CMA).

Steve studied at the Eastman School of Music, University of Colorado at Denver, Berklee School Of Music, University Of California San Diego and Alexander University.

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8
Album Review

Gerald Beckett: Mood

Read "Mood" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki


Flautist, bandleader and composer Gerald Beckett picks up on Mood where he left off from 2017's Oblivion (Summit), a stellar collection of songs by Miles Davis, Ellis Marsalis, Astor Piazzolla, Gerry Mulligan and other great jazz composers. Beckett wrote several new originals for his new Mood, including personal remembrances of hometown haunts such as “Club Raven" and an “Ode to Ray Wood," and sets them among compositions by Wynton Marsalis, Ron Carter and a trio of American pianists. “My own ...

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5

Performance / Tour

Steve McQuarry's Mandala Nonet And Orchestra To Perform The Music Of Gil Evans, Sept 30, At SFJAZZ Center's Miner Auditorium

Steve McQuarry's Mandala Nonet And Orchestra To Perform The Music Of Gil Evans, Sept 30, At SFJAZZ Center's Miner Auditorium

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Oakland-based keyboardist-composer Steve McQuarry has long been in love with the unique music of Gil Evans, the late, largely-self-taught Toronto-born composer, arranger, and keyboardist best remembered for his numerous collaborations with Miles Davis. “The whole way he thought about orchestrating using instruments and also pushing those instruments in different ranges is really fascinating,” McQuarry says of Evans. “I remember talking with Maria Schneider about this. She said he would write the trombone parts really high and things like that, which ...

1

Event

Keyboardist Steve McQuarry Presents A Tribute To Carla Bley At SFJAZZ Center, June 5

Keyboardist Steve McQuarry Presents A Tribute To Carla Bley At SFJAZZ Center, June 5

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Oakland-based keyboardist-composer Steve McQuarry and his musician friends had long been enamored of the cutting-edge music of Oakland-born keyboardist-composer Carla Bley. In a conversation a year and a half ago with Bley’s daughter, keyboardist Karen Mantler, he mentioned that he would love to perform some of her mother’s compositions. Mantler talked it over with Bley, and within a few months, a large box filled with Bley’s scores for octet and big band, some of them in their original hand-penciled form, ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Mood

Pear Orchard Records
2020

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Introductions:...

Mandala Records
2013

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