Novel Jazz Septet

Novel Jazz is back by popular demand!

“Novel Jazz” is a band that re-interprets the great works of jazz icons, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. For over a decade, they have been mining the rich musical collections of these legends (together they wrote ~3000 compositions, of which most jazz lovers are familiar with only about ~2% of these!). Through regular trips to the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. (and more recently, the Strayhorn Collection at the Univ. of Chicago), Novel Jazz locates original scores of their lesser-known/rarely recorded compositions, which they then arrange for the band and bring back to life. It is not uncommon to find their writings, poetry and personal letters mixed in among the music manuscripts in the Smithsonian archives, all of which they weave into the stories of each tune. Novel Jazz relishes bringing this music back to life—but (very important)— they do it with a 21st century spin. They always also mix in their better known standards for balance. They play regularly around New England, in opera houses, theaters and concert halls.