Arts in the Parks: Todd Marcus

The Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra performs music from their new album In the Valley – a Middle-Eastern inspired suite of music  inspired by Marcus’ travels and performances in Egypt since 2015.  The music offers a unique new direction in jazz and was commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program and funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  

The music continues Marcus’s exploration of his Egyptian heritage and follows his 2015 album Blues for Tahrir which portrayed Egypt’s 2011 revolution through a suite of compositions capturing the movement’s different phases.  “I’ve been interested in incorporating Middle Eastern musical influences, as a way to pull something unique from my culture and fuse it with my music.” Marcus explains.  “It’s been challenging because jazz and Middle-Eastern music are so different. While jazz uses a lot of rich harmony, Middle-Eastern music tends to be a lot of unison playing or over drones and if you try to add chords, it diminishes the Middle-Eastern feel of the music. So it’s taken a lot of experimenting to find ways to make this fusion of the two musics work.”  

Featuring:

Todd Marcus – bass clarinet 
Greg Tardy – tenor saxophone 
Brent Birckhead – alto saxophone & flute 
Russell Kirk – alto saxophone 
Freddie Hendrix – trumpet 
Javier Nero – trombone 
Xavier Davis – piano 
Jeff Reed – bass 
Eric Kennedy – drums