Mulgrew-ology, the second Detroit Music Factory recording by the Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra, explores this lesser-spotlighted side of Miller.

Gwinnell intersperses Miller’s compositional ideas throughout a body of arrangements that include songs penned by Miller as well as other artists’ compositions for which he was famous for playing in his certain way—because even when Miller played someone else’s tune, it was a markedly Mulgrew Miller version.

“There are certain albums where the work is about you and you want to shine through your own work,” says Gwinnell. “But this record is more about Mulgrew than about me.”

Just as the inflections, the words, the idiosyncrasies that make up a person’s manner of speaking sum up into one’s personality, Miller’s compositions and playing have a definitive voice. Gwinnell mined for those nuances, the subtle licks and chord progressions, choices like the melodic sequence that Miller plays over a diminished harmony, the stuff that tells you you’re listening to Mulgrew Miller.

The Troy Athens High School band will open the show at 7pm.

The post The Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

Scott Gwinnell started his Jazz Orchestra back in 1999 at the Music Menu Café in Detroit.  He then moved to the Cadieux Café, and now makes his home at Cliff Bells.  The SGJO has recorded three CDs: Basement Vibes, Brush Fire; the latter winning awards from the Detroit Music Awards for best recording, and best traditional jazz group (2006) and the latest, Mulgrew-ology, their second for the Detroit Music Factory label, which explores the music of pianist Mulgrew Miller.

“The band is tight, the spirited arrangements lean, listenable, and balanced.” (Jazz.com) Highlight events for the SGJO are performances at the International Association of Jazz Educators conference at Toronto, Canada with saxophonist Dave Liebman, and performances at Detroit Jazz Festival, Cliff Bells, and Detroit Institute of Arts with jazz bass virtuoso, John Clayton. The SGJO premiered Clayton’s 45 min. suite, T.H.E. Detroit at the festival in 2009, with high acclaim.

At 7 pm the Troy HS Band will take the stage, with Scott’s band coming on at 8 pm.

The post The Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

As a performer, Scott has played on over 20 professionally released recordings including 5 under his own name. Basement Vibes (2002), Scott Gwinnell Trio (2006), the award-winning Brush Fire (2008), Cass Corridor Story (2011- Detroit Music Factory) and Mulgrew-ology (2018- Detroit Music Factory). Scott has toured/recorded/performed with the following jazz luminaries: Joe Lovano, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Liebman, Richie Cole, Jimmy Heath, Billy Hart, Terry Gibbs, John Clayton, Steve Turre, Marcus Belgrave, and Jon Hendricks, for whom Scott was three year music director.

As a composer/arranger, Scott has written over 400 works, from solo piano, big band, symphony orchestra, to marching band. He has received awards/recognition from Downbeat Magazine, International Association of Jazz Educators, and Detroit Music Awards, who have granted him 11 awards over the past 10 years. Scott writes for his 16-piece big band, “The Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra”, and the 10 piece, “The Scott Gwinnell Dectet”. Both have held residency at Cliff Bells, one of Detroit’s famous jazz clubs.

As an educator, Scott’s credentials and reputation have led him to full and part time collegiate professorships at: University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Wayne County Community College, and Oakland University, where he presently serves as a lecturer, instructor of jazz piano, theory, arranging and director of the Oakland University Jazz Singers. Scott is also the director for Music Hall’s Jazz Vocal Education Program. He has given clinics and adjudicated at schools and festivals around the country, and holds a private studio for a select group of talented pianists, composers, and arrangers.

The Oxford high school band will open for Scott’s Jazz Orchestra.

The post Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

The post Dr. Prof. Leonard King Orchestra plays the music of Lyman Woodard & Ron English appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

A student band opens things up at 7 pm with Scott excellent groups taking the stage at 8 pm.

The post Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

https://www.wscottjazz.com/orchestra-groups/

The post Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

NOTE: A student jazz ensemble will open up at 7 pm with Scott and his band coming on at nine pm.

The post Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

This year is the 21st anniversary for the Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra, which initially started as a rehearsal band for Gwinnell to hear his compositions and arrangements played. With encouragement from friends/musicians and an offer of a weekly gig at the Music Menu Cafe in Detroit’s Greektown.

Gwinnell and his musicians made a commitment to present high quality big band jazz music. After the Menu, the band moved to the Cadieux Cafe on the east side of Detroit where gigs were routinely accented with the playing of Detroit trumpet legend Marcus Belgrave, who eventually joined the SGJO for their first record in 2002, “Basement Vibes.”

During this time the band also began to branch out. Gigs with the late great tenor player Donald Walden, a feature performance in Toronto at the International Association of Jazz Educators with sax virtuoso Dave Liebman, and WDET radio dates highlight this period.

Next, the band began its exciting Wednesday gigs at the then brand new Cliff Bells. With the addition of some more skilled players, the SGJO reached a higher artistic plateau. Working together every week, the band gelled and impressed new audiences of jazz fans, musicians, and critics. SGJO then released a CD “Brush Fire” (2010 WSG Music) which won two Detroit Music Awards and also did performances with Aria Hendricks and Dominic Faranacci, as well as performances at the Detroit Jazz Festival and other festivals which gave the SGJO more notoriety.

In 2009, the SGJO was chosen to be part of a big project proposed by the Detroit Jazz Festival. The artist-in-residence, the acclaimed bassist/composer John Clayton, was commissioned to write a suite based on Detroit jazz legends. The SGJO would play a series of summer concerts, with the finale being a performance to close that year’s festival. The suite paired the Clayton Brothers Quintet with the SGJO in a 55 minute concerto grosso. All of the musicians performed greatly, receiving a 5 minute standing ovation.
Some of the frequent musicians involved with the Cliff Bells SGJO group are: Keith Kaminski, James Hughes, Steve Wood, Carl Cafagna, and Mark Berger on saxes. Dave Jensen, Terry Kimura, Tony Buccilli, and Stefan Stolarchuk on trombone. Trumpets are Bob Jensen, Paul Finkbeiner, John Douglas, and Justin Walter. Jordan Schug plays bass and Scott Kretzer plays the drums.
The most recent project has been a recording of the music of Mulgrew Miller (Detroit Music Factory label).
A High School Jazz Band will open at 7 pm.

https://www.wscottjazz.com/orchestra-groups/

The post Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

The name of late jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller may not trip off the tongue of the casual jazz fan, but make no mistake, among the genre’s aficionados, he was and is considered a musician’s musician. Versatile and singular, he pushed jazz to the limit harmonically, but always with a swinging sensibility.
Miller could accompany anybody, whether it was a vocalist or a horn player, he fit in every kind of setting. He was the guy you wanted on your album. But what perhaps even fewer people are aware of is that Miller was more than just a remarkable piano player, he was also a prolific and talented composer and arranger.

Mulgrew-ology, the second Detroit Music Factory recording by Detroit-based jazz pianist, composer and arranger Scott Gwinnell, explores this lesser-spotlighted side of Miller.
Gwinnell intersperses Miller’s compositional ideas throughout a body of arrangements that include songs penned by Miller as well as other artists’ compositions for which he was famous for playing in his certain way—because even when Miller played someone else’s tune, it was a markedly Mulgrew Miller version.

“There are certain albums where the work is about you and you want to shine through your own work,” says Gwinnell. “But this record is more about Mulgrew than about me.”
Just as the inflections, the words, the idiosyncrasies that make up a person’s manner of speaking sum up into one’s personality, Miller’s compositions and playing have a definitive voice. Gwinnell mined for those nuances, the subtle licks and chord progressions, choices like the melodic sequence that Miller plays over a diminished harmony, the stuff that tells you you’re listening to Mulgrew Miller.

According to jazz musician and producer Tony Ruda, who wrote the album’s liner notes:
“In [Miller’s] recordings, you hear a pianist steeped in the hard bop tradition whose style could just as soon catch you off guard with the most wonderfully lyrical phrase. His style was never flashy, because a true professional doesn’t need to be – why go for the cheap trick on the keys when you can turn a beautiful melodic line that will leave a captive audience breathless?”

Although Mulgrew-ology is a deep-dive into the essence of Miller’s compositional skills, Gwinnell takes what Miller did in his compositions and uses that imprint in different ways throughout his arrangements. The 17-piece orchestral arrangements help provide Gwinnell a blank canvas with which to bring the album to life, and listeners who are not new to Miller will appreciate the uncharacteristic choice.

“[Mulgrew-ology’s] title track is exemplary of [Gwinnell’s] strong compositional style, giving us a tune that swings hard and sets the tone for the rest of the album,” writes Ruda. “Jazz veterans James Hughes on saxophone and Paul Finkbeiner on trumpet both treat us to some terrific soloing in turn, as the conversation between the rhythm and brass sections draws us into Gwinnell’s high-spirited arrangement.”

To jazz fans for whom Mulgrew-ology is an introduction to Mulgrew Miller, here’s the thing: when you hear Miller-esque tunes, they sound familiar, they make sense. It’s not a standard, not a Great American Songbook tune, but it goes beyond that. According to Gwinnell, it’s still rooted in “sensible listening.” The music is so catchy, so beautiful, it doesn’t matter that the name Mulgrew Miller is unfamiliar. What matters is how enjoyable you’re likely to find Mulgrew-ology.

Ruda on Miller and Gwinnell:
“…any commentary about Mulgrew’s quiet command of his instrument or the understated quality of his playing would not do him justice. For that, we simply have to turn to the music – only through hearing his compositions do we truly get close to Mulgrew Miller the man. Thankfully, with Scott Gwinnell’s album Mulgrew-ology, we are treated to sparkling arrangements of his work that add a new dimension to our understanding of what jazz meant to Mulgrew Miller, and perhaps more importantly, what Mulgrew Miller meant to jazz. It’s an absolutely beautiful homage.”

A student band will open the show up at 7 pm

http://www.detroitmusicfactory.com/news/mulgrew-ology-by-the-scott-gwinnell-jazz-orchestra

The post Scott Gwinnell Jazz Orchestra appeared first on Cliff Bell's.

To jazz fans for whom Mulgrew-­ology is an introduction to Mulgrew Miller, here’s the thing: when you hear Miller-­esque tunes, they sound familiar, they make sense. It’s not a standard, not a Great American Songbook tune, but it goes beyond that. According to Gwinnell, it’s still rooted in “sensible listening.” The music is so catchy, so beautiful, it doesn’t matter that the name Mulgrew Miller is unfamiliar. What matters is how enjoyable you’re likely to find Mulgrew-­ology.
Ruda on Miller and Gwinnell:
“…any commentary about Mulgrew’s quiet command of his instrument or the understated quality of his playing would not do him justice. For that, we simply have to turn to the music – only through hearing his compositions do we truly get close to Mulgrew Miller the man. Thankfully, with Scott Gwinnell’s album Mulgrew-­ology, we are treated to sparkling arrangements of his work that add a new dimension to our understanding of what jazz meant to Mulgrew Miller, and perhaps more importantly, what Mulgrew Miller meant to jazz. It’s an absolutely beautiful homage.”

Student band at 7, Scott’s band at 8 pm

The post SCOTT GWINNELL Orchestra MULGREW-­OLOGY appeared first on Cliff Bell's.