DARRELL KATZ
Genres: Progressive Big Band, Third Stream, Vocal Jazz, 21st Century Modern • United States

Darrell Katz, director of the Jazz Composers Alliance, helped to found the organization after being impressed by the success of other composers’ collective groups. Originally from Topeka, Kansas, Katz has lived in the Boston area since 1975. Katz appears regularly with the JCA Orchestra, the JCA Sax Quartet, and sometimes with his own groups. His most recent disc is A Wallflower In The Amazon (Accurate Records). It features vocalists Rebecca Shrimpton and Mike Finnigan (also on Hammond B3), both of whom are on The Same Thing, released in 2008, which adds baritone saxophonist/composer Fred Ho. He also is one of six composers on 2013’s new JCA Orchestra release, Stories (Cadence). Katz has written two improvisational cantatas for vocalist Rebecca Shrimpton and the JCA Orchestra, The Death Of Simone Weil, a setting of the narrative poem by Paula Tatarunis, and Wheelworks, to be released in 2014, is a setting of quotations of Albert Einstein. read more...