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Terry Gordon

Terry Gordon is active in a wide variety of musical styles from jazz, Latin, and big band, to rock, classical, and contemporary Christian worship music. He performs regularly with Alex Torres y su Orquesta, the Terry Gordon Quintet, the Arch Stanton Quartet, and Brass-O-Mania. He has appeared at major venues such as the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the Rochester International Jazz Festival, the Cairo International Jazz Festival, and Lincoln Center, and has appeared in programs with Bobby Rydell, Leslie Gore, and The Temptations. With Alex Torres he can be heard in several television shows and movies including Walt Disney’s Old Dogs and HBO's White House Plumbers, and with the Empire Jazz Orchestra he has backed up such jazz luminaries as Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Randy Brecker, Slide Hampton, Rufus Reid, Lew Soloff, Wycliffe Gordon, The Four Freshmen, and David “Fathead” Newman.

The Terry Gordon Quintet has been exploring original music on stage and in the studio for nearly three decades. Terry Gordon, Eric Walentowicz, Michael-Louis Smith, Bill Lawrence, and Pete Sweeney form a band of seasoned jazz musicians from a rich background of wide-ranging musical experiences and influences. The band has released five albums, Wakeup Call (1996), Contemplations (2002), Homeward Bound (2006), Tomorrow Calling (2013), and Tangents (2023), which have established the band’s approach to creative music and earned much critical acclaim.

Awards

Received a New York State arts grant for composition to compose a work for jazz group with strings, which his own jazz project, the Terry Gordon Quintet, premiered with the Upper Catskill String Quartet.

Gear

Harrelson Summit VGR trumpet
Lawler LT26B-1A trumpet
Yamaha YFH-635T flugelhorn
Olds Amabassador cornet

Terry Gordon Quintet: Contemplations

Read "Contemplations" reviewed by J. Robert Bragonier

by J. Robert Bragonier
October 4, 2003

The Terry Gordon Quintet has made music as a group for more than a decade, and it shows: their ensemble is tight and intuitive, their soloing bright and confident, and their improvisation brash and innovative. Contemplations (2002) is their second CD; their first, Wakeup Call, was released in 1996.

Many of these nine originals (seven by Gordon and two by Walentowicz) are designed to stretch the envelope: the more conventional are bop-oriented mainstream interspersed with Latin jazz ...

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Recording

Terry Gordon Quintet Releases Its Second C.D., "Contemplations"

Source: All About Jazz

The Terry Gordon Quintet has released its second C.D., “Contemplations", on Flying Gurnard Records.

“Contemplations" features nine original compositions in a wide renge of jazz styles. Throughout the C.D., the quintet reaffirms the distinctive commitment to unpredictability and innovation that has been its hallmark since the band formed in the early 1990s.

With more than 70 minutes of music, “Contemplations" covers a mixture of jazz styles from bop-oriented mainstream jazz to funk and unbounded free-form jazz featuring challenging melodies and ...
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Tomorrow Calling:

“a deft blend of straight-ahead jazz with blues, ballads, samba and funk.”
— Nippertown.com

“This group’s strengths are many, from the proven writing skills of Gordon and
saxophonist Eric Walentowicz, to the always-fiery approach of guitarist Michael-Louis
Smith.”
— Metroland, Albany, N.Y.

Homeward Bound:

“a fine disc of nine new jazz compositions… reflect(ing) a blend of tradition and improvisation.” — International Trumpet Guild Journal