Woodbury, Brian - Variety Orchestra
SKU
ReRBW1
This is a really good and completely unclassifiable Americana-based orchestral big-band work, with obvious nods to Van Dyke Parks (see below) and far beyond. I hope that some people pick this one up based on its worth, as I think this will be a tough sell. "The Variety Orchestra is a sparkling new CD of melodic post-modern jazz compositions. The music is built around a one-of-a-kind line-up combining a driving jazz rhythm section, Latin and Big Band horns, and the down-home Americana of pedal steel, banjo, fiddles & accordion. This mix is peppered with tabla, new music violin, tone rows, NYC bar band, Satchmo cornet growls, and a 15th century brass chorale. The CD features phenomenal players from both coasts a whos who from New York's downtown and LA's experimental music scenes. Woodbury, a Los Angeles-based songwriter, TV and theater composer, studied musical comedy song-writing with Tom Lehrer, and avant garde music composition with Pauline Oliveros. His songs have been sung by Jill Sobule, Terre Roche and Lisa Loeb. He wrote the theme for the ABC-TV cartoon Pepper Ann, and songs for the feature film Teachers Pet. He was head songwriter on Disneys Book of Pooh and Jim Hensons Bear in the Big Blue House. He also orchestrated Najmas Forbidden Kiss(Shanachie), a CD of classic Indian film songs."
"Not since Esquivel and the wondrous works of young Brian Wilson in his lettuce years have I heard sound of this romantic design. World beat with an American watermark. Indispensable.-Van Dyke Parks. [ReR]