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Gary Smulyan

Baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan is critically acclaimed as one of the major voices on the baritone saxophone today. As a teenager growing up on Long Island, Gary had the opportunity to perform with Lee Konitz, Chet Baker, and Jimmy Knepper.

In 1978 he was asked to join Woody Herman's Young Thundering Herd, which at that time included Joe Lovano, Marc Johnson and John Riley. He left Herman in 1980 and moved back to New York to join the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra led by Bob Brookmeyer. Mr. Smulyan has recorded and performed worldwide with Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Ray Charles, B.B. King, Tom Harrell. Cedar Walton, George Coleman, Joe Henderson, Joe Lovano, Tommy Flanagan, Chick Corea, Diana Ross, Clark Terry, Kenny Wheeler, Charles McPherson, James Moody and Slide Hampton, among others.

He has recorded 5 CDs for the CrissCross label. THE LURE OF BEAUTY, SAXOPHONE MOSAIC (voted one of the best 25 CDs of 1995 by WBGO, New York's leading FM jazz station), HOMAGE (featuring Tommy Flanagan), GARY SMULYAN WITH STRINGS (selected as one of the 10 best jazz CDs of 1997 by the Boston Globe) and most recently BLUE SUITE WITH BRASS. Gary's new release, The Real Deal, on Reservoir Records is currently available.

Mr. Smulyan currently performs with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Joe Lovano Nonet, the Dave Holland Octet and Big Band, The Three Baritone Saxophone Band, the George Coleman Octet, the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Big Band and the Tom Harrell Octet, as well as his own projects.

He is the winner of of the 1990 JAZZ TIMES CRITICS POLL, the 1994 DOWN BEAT READERS POLL, the 1998 DOWN BEAT CRITICS POLL (TDWR), and is the winner of the 2001 DOWN BEAT CRITICS POLL (TDWR). He also listed in the 1998 DOWN BEAT and JAZZ TIMES READERS POLLS. Gary was recently announced the winner of the 2004 Jazz Journalists' Award for Baritone Saxophonist of the Year and winner of the 2007 Down Beat Critics Poll.

Mr. Smulyan is currently on faculty at William Paterson University and is a clinician and endorser for Vandoren Woodwind Products and Keilworth Saxophones.

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Album Review

Dial and DeRosa: Keep Swingin'

Read "Keep Swingin'" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Keep Swingin', a splendid new album from pianist Garry Dial and drummer Rich DeRosa, features “the music of Charlie Banacos." Charlie who? you may ask. And the answer is, there are jazz educators, and then there was Charlie Banacos, whose talent and ingenuity in the classroom influenced and inspired countless jazz musicians for more than fifty years. During that time, he designed more than a hundred courses of study and wrote half a dozen books on composition and improvisation.

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Album Review

John Lang: Earotica

Read "Earotica" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There's something special about a nonet: small enough to have its own personality, yet large enough to sound at times akin to a full-size big band. Bassist John Lang leads a first-class nonet on Earotica, his fourth album as leader. Having given Lang's last disc a rather lukewarm appraisal almost two years ago, it is a pleasure to note that his new album is superior in every respect. Gone are the desultory funk and rock beats, replaced ...

Album Review

Mark Masters: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook

Read "Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Ringraziando il cielo nascono ancora dischi come questo. Opere che evocano gli anni cinquanta, quando il jazz rifletteva un mondo che guardava al futuro con speranza. Un disco retrò dunque? Solo se lo si guarda superficialmente. L'omaggio di Mark Masters al songbook di Alec Wilder con Gary Smulyan protagonista, non è esercizio stilistico o lavoro di routine ma un percorso fresco e smagliante, caratterizzato dalle dinamiche orchestrazioni di Masters e dai trascinanti interventi del sax baritono. Un'opera i cui i ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Gary Smulyan, Bebop in the Time of Coronavirus

Read "Gary Smulyan, Bebop in the Time of Coronavirus" reviewed by David Bixler


Baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan, known for his tenure with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, has released a new recording entitled Our Contrafacts (SteepleChase Records) with bassist David Wong and percussionist Rodney Green. This week Gary chats about his bout with the coronavirus and shares his thoughts on the pandemic that is re-shaping the world we know (or knew) as musicians. ...

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Album Review

The Mark Masters Ensemble: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook

Read "Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Alec Wilder was born in 1907 and died in 1980, and might well have been described as an eccentric renaissance man. He composed opera, musicals, film music, popular songs, and chamber music, along with publishing in 1975 one of the most read books on popular music: American Popular Song: the Great Innovators 1900-1950. The Mark Masters Ensemble is a tight knit and imaginative Octet which can stake their claim on mining the gold contained in Alec Wilder's popular ...

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Album Review

The Mark Masters Ensemble: Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook

Read "Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Night Talk, the eighth album by celebrated arranger Mark Masters' superb West Coast-based ensemble, is subtitled “The Alec Wilder Songbook Featuring Gary Smulyan." Indeed, Smulyan's is an impressive solo voice (but hardly the only one) in an eloquent songbook that appraises eight of Wilder's tasteful compositions, including a pair of his best-known melodies, “Moon and Sand" and “I'll Be Around." As Masters arranged every number for his hand-picked octet, nothing more need be said about that save ...

Album Review

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer

Read "OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Questo disco ci è giunto con un po' di ritardo ma va assolutamente segnalato. È infatti uno dei migliori dischi dell'anno nonchè un omaggio al genio orchestrale di Bob Brookmeyer. Forse non tutti sanno che lo storico trombonista, partner negli anni cinquanta di Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan e Jimmy Giuffre, è stato uno di massimi orchestratori moderni: nel 1966 partecipò alla fondazione della Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, scrivendo decine di partiture, e nel 1990 ne divenne il direttore, quando la ...

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Recording

Gary Smulyan at Le Duc

Gary Smulyan at Le Duc

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

There's nothing quite like a bad-ass baritone saxophone. Baritones tend to divide into two camps on the leadership side. There's the Gerry Mulligan approach, which sounds muscular and mannered. And there's the Pepper Adams school, an unchained approach that leaps on you like a panther. This low-register, uninhibited and gruff sound has its roots in the late 1940s with Leo Parker, Serge Chaloff, Harry Carney and Paul Williams but evolved in the late '50s with Adams's synthesis. I love Adams ...

Event

Jazz Returns To Baba Louie's Backroom On Aug. 3, As Pittsfield Program Features Gary Smulyan, Noah Baerman

Jazz Returns To Baba Louie's Backroom On Aug. 3, As Pittsfield Program Features Gary Smulyan, Noah Baerman

Source: Ed Bride Associates

Berkshires Jazz Culminates First Fridays Artswalk With Two Extraordinary Guest Artists As part of its year-round commitment to ‘live’ jazz, Berkshires Jazz has scheduled a double bill on Aug. 3, featuring baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan and pianist Noah Baerman. It will take place in the intimate setting of the backroom at Baba Louie’s Sourdough Pizza, where Berkshires Jazz has instituted a jazz series to follow Pittsfield's monthly “First Fridays Artswalks". The guest artists will be backed by the Berkshires Jazz ...

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Award / Grant

Litchfield Jazz Festival Announces 2012 Artist-in-residence, Baritone Saxophonist Gary Smulyan

Litchfield Jazz Festival Announces 2012 Artist-in-residence, Baritone Saxophonist Gary Smulyan

Source: Lindsey Turner

Goshen, CT — Litchfield Jazz Festival announces the 2012 Artist-in-Residence for the 17th Annual Litchfield Jazz Festival. The honor goes to baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan. Known as a master of bebop, Smulyan is one of the major voices on his instrument today. Winner of six Grammy Awards, his latest honors include winner of the 2009 and 2010 Jazz Journalist Award for Baritone Saxophonist of the Year, the 2009 Down Beat Critics Poll for Baritone Saxophone, and the 2011 Down Beat ...

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Radio

Rockwired.Com's 'All New Jazzed and Blue - Profiles in Blues and Jazz' Profiles Grammy-Winning Baritone Saxophonist Gary Smulyan and His Latest Release "Smul's Paradise"

Source: Rockwired Media LLC

The weekly online radio series Jazzed and Blue: Profiles in Blues and Jazz is back and is now available for download at Rockwired.com and features an exclusive interview with Grammy-winning baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan regarding his brand new release Smul's Paradise. In the opening segment, Smulyan discusses the inspiration behind the tracks of his new CD, working with Mike LeDonne, Peter Bernstein and Kenny Washington and his affinity for the organ jazz trio sound. The second half of this edition ...

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Interview

Baritone Saxophonist Gary Smulyan Interviewed at AAJ

Baritone Saxophonist Gary Smulyan Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

A baritone saxophonist who plays like Bird? And harvests more than a half-dozen Grammy awards in the process? That seeming contradiction characterizes the great successes of Gary Smulyan, one of today's most in-demand jazz performers, educators, and recording artists.

AAJ Contributor Edward Bride spoke with Smulyan recently, and the saxophonist provides insight into his unique sound and approach, one less inspired by the great baritonists and more by alto legends like Charlie Parker and Phil Woods.

Check out Gary Smulyan: ...

Evan Gongora
saxophone, baritone

Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Keep Swingin'

Outside in Music
2024

buy

Earotica

Cellar Records
2023

buy

Bella Napoli

Capri Records
2014

buy

OverTime: Music of...

Planet Arts Records
2014

buy

Gary Smulyan /...

Capri Records
2013

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Videos

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