Morchestra Featuring Vocalist Jackie Ryan at La Pena Cultural Center

The Morchestra is a Berkeley-based jazz orchestra that plays big band jazz filtered through the half-vast midden of the mind of arranger and composer Tony Corman, a mid-century East Coaster long resident in the Bay Area. The players in the band are Bay Area stalwarts, fine professionals all, and the material is a rich mix of standards, Brazilian music and Tony's atmospheric originals. The band is long on colors, lots of muted brass, clarinets and flutes in the mix, and the spirit is one of sophisticated fun, enjoyable for both the deeply initiated jazz listener and civilians who simply love music in all its positive manifestations....

read more

The Morchestra is a Berkeley-based jazz orchestra that plays big band jazz filtered through the half-vast midden of the mind of arranger and composer Tony Corman, a mid-century East Coaster long resident in the Bay Area. The players in the band are Bay Area stalwarts, fine professionals all, and the material is a rich mix of standards, Brazilian music and Tony's atmospheric originals. The band is long on colors, lots of muted brass, clarinets and flutes in the mix, and the spirit is one of sophisticated fun, enjoyable for both the deeply initiated jazz listener and civilians who simply love music in all its positive manifestations.

Our special guest, the amazing vocalist Jackie Ryan, is a Bay Area treasure who has performed all over the world with an amazing cast of other jazz greats. Jazz Times says she is "One of the outstanding jazz vocalists of her generation and, quite possibly, of all time...rivaling the dexterous sass of Sarah Vaughan, the instinctive smarts of Carmen McRae and the scintillating verve of Diana Krall."

We are honored and delighted to be able to present her in a big band setting singing four arrangements written for this occasion. She is an intelligent and deeply soulful singer who swings like mad, and writing for her has been a pure pleasure!

show less