Artist review: Fred Hess Big Band

Fred Hess Big Band -- Into the Open [LP]
By Jeanie Straub
JStraub@ColoradoMusicBuzz.com

Fred Hess is one to beat. In the Colorado music scene, few are as prolific or as worthy of writing home about as jazz composer Hess, whose website motto says he is “committed to exploring the boundaries of notated and improvised music.” Hess, a saxophonist and coordinator of Jazz Studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver, most recently has put out a CD with a big band overflowing with immense talent, including favorite Ron Miles. If Into the Open is any indication, Hess and his band-mates are living up to the commitment to pushing the edge: It just isn’t possible for music to be any more energizing than this. Hess’s own background is that he completed a doctorate in music composition from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1991. He first attended the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, N.Y. (1979) and founded the Boulder Creative Music Ensemble (1982), was the founding director of Denver’s Creative Music Works Orchestra (1993) and was a member of drummer Ginger Baker’s Denver Jazz Quintet. He has recorded 14 CDs under his own name and twice received Colorado’s Composition Fellowship (1986, 1994), won Denver’s inaugural Hennessey Jazz Search (1991), the Jazz Composers Alliance, Julius Hemphill Award (2000), and first prize at the First International Jazz Composers Symposium (2006). Even without all this, his latest CD is an inspiration. If you don’t think you’re into improvisational jazz or haven’t invested much time with the genre, Into the Open is about to convert you. It makes an outstanding introduction and is lip-smacking for aficionados.

The Fred Hess Big Band: Fred Hess (leader/composer, tenor saxophone); John Gunther (alto saxophone); Johan Eriksson (alto saxophone); Peter Sommer (tenor saxophone); Mark Harris (baritone saxophone); Brad Goode (trumpet); Dave Rajewski (trumpet); Al Hood (trumpet); Ron Miles (trumpet); Tom Ball (trombone); Nelson Hinds (trombone); Hoyt Andres (trombone); Gary Mayne (bass trombone); Marc Sabetella (piano); Ken Filiano (bass); Matt Wilson (drums); Tyler Gilmore (conductor)