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Welcome to Aardvark Jazz Orchestra Online |
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 Aardvark Jazz Orchestra's April 21st concert at MIT was featured in a review in the Sunday Boston Globe:
CAMBRIDGE — When you think “jazz college,” MIT probably isn’t the first place that comes to mind. But this year, MIT is celebrating 50 years with jazz on the curriculum, going back to the hiring of Herb Pomeroy in 1963. Saturday night, current MIT jazz-faculty member Mark Harvey led his Aardvark Jazz Orchestra in a program at Kresge Auditorium that celebrated the MIT benchmark as well as the 40th anniversary of his band, and, coincidentally, Jazz Appreciation Month... Read the full story at the BostonGlobe.com |
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 Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 8:00 pm MIT, Kresge Auditorium in Cambridge, MA
Aardvark performed on MIT's main stage in a program entitled "Echoes & Resonance" as part of the 50th Anniversary of Jazz at MIT. Music director Mark Harvey reprised two of his major MIT commissions for the April 20th show: Beyond (written for the MIT Wind Ensemble and featuring Herb Pomeroy and Ran Blake in the premiere), and Saxophrenia (composed for the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, featuring Joe Lovano in the premiere). The concert also invoked memories of legendary musicians and their connections to Aardvark and MIT: Jaki Byard, who performed with Aardvark in 1986 in Kresge Auditorium, and Mercer Ellington, who lectured to Mark Harvey's classes at MIT and donated his arrangement of Moon Mist to the band. Harvey dedicated the concert to the memory of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings as well as MIT police Officer Sean Collier. He introduced the show saying he hoped it would “reaffirm the power of music and of life.”
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 Friday, March 8, 2013 at 7:30 pm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Remis Auditorium 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Aardvark marked the high point of its historic 40th season with the world premiere of Mark Harvey's epic new work, Boston JazzScape. The audience enjoyed an exuberant display of Aardvark's "awe-inspiring audience fascination" (Downbeat) as the band delivered Harvey's exhilarating 21st century salute to Boston. This extended suite, composed over 10 years, showed off Harvey's prodigious skill in styles ranging from jazz, swing, blues, and rock to multi-stylistic mashups. The piece tells a fascinating story of Boston, from the Great Fire of 1872 to Sacco & Vanzetti to the infamous urban renewal of the West End (a precursor to the Big Dig), from Boston-born jazz maven Nat Hentoff to social crusader Kip Tiernan, from the back story of the Charlie Card to Mayor Kevin White's Summerthing. |
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 Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Wednesday, January 30th has been proclaimed "Dr. Mark Sumner Harvey Day" in the City of Boston by the City Council offered by City Councilors Felix G. Arroyo & Tito Jackson. Read the official proclamation (PDF) Meanwhile, the Cambridge "City Council declares Wednesday, January 30, 2013, to be 'Mark Sumner Harvey Day' in the City of Cambridge." On the evening of January 29, 2013 the Key to the City was presented to Dr. Harvey by Councillor Reeves on the occasion of Jazz Boston's 7th annual members event held at Ryles Jazz Club. |
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  We're pleased to announce that Aardvark’s new CD, Evocations (Leo Records) has been named to The New York City Jazz Record’s Best of 2012, Large Ensemble Releases! Click here to view the full Best of 2012 listings (PDF, opens in new window) |
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 A brand new AARDVARK T-SHIRT in celebration of our historic 40th season is now available in most sizes with an elegant design -- red on either black or teal shirts. (To check on availability of specific sizes, please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
). Click images at right to view a larger image. To order, please send a check for $17 (shipping & handling included) payable to Aardvark c/o Mark Harvey, PO Box 8721, JFK Station, Boston, MA 02114. Order now for prompt delivery and best selection! |
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 The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra continued its historic 40th season with a show called Jazz Panorama: Basie, Ellington, Mingus and More at the Amazing Things Arts Center, 160 Hollis Street, Framingham, MA 01701, on Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 2:00 pm. The audience enjoyed the band perform classics such as Come Sunday and Pork Pie Hat, counterpointed by music director Mark Harvey's fresh arrangements of the Latin-jazz Una Mas by Kenny Dorham and Miles Mode by John Coltrane. Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 2:00 pm
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 Aardvark gave its historic 40th Annual Christmas Concert featuring Music in the Spirit of the Season, a varied program featuring music from the band's four decades of holiday music-making. A large and enthusiastic crowd was on hand for the historic night. Included in the concert were jazz updates of favorite carols such as Silent Night, Mark Harvey's arrangements of Cristo Redentor and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (performed on the very first Christmas concert), plus two new Harvey originals Fanfare for 40and Children's Carol, as well as Sugar Rum Cherry from the Ellington-Strayhorn Nutcracker Suite. In addition to our regular vocalists Grace Hughes and Jerry Edwards, Donna Hewitt-Didham, a long-time Aardvark soloist, made a special guest appearance on the 2012 program. As always, the concert benefits worthy organizations, and this season's beneficiaries were Community Works and the Emmanuel Church. The concert was held Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 8:00 pm at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury St., Boston, MA. |
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Please visit Aardvark Jazz Orchestra's Facebook page and click Like to stay in touch with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. Click here to visit and like our Facebook page for updated event and music information. |
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Already garnering enthusiastic reviews, EVOCATIONS, on Leo Records, one of the world's leading adventurous music labels, showcases the original compositions of music director Mark Harvey. These pieces display a masterful blend of jazz traditions and 20th-century music while allowing for much individual, collective, and conductor's improvisation. "a modern and absolutely unique sound"
Jazz Podium
(Germany) "filled with never-ending movement, change, turbulence, playfulness, contradictions...that not only works but also provokes and surprises"
UNI Magazine
(Czech Republic)
Click "Read more" below for more info and
Order Your CD Today! |
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 Wednesday, October 3, 2012, at 8:00 pm
Scullers Jazz Club
Doubletree Guest Suites, 400 Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA Aardvark kicked off its historic 40th Season in grand style to a full house at Scullers... |
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Click the image below to watch the video in a new window on YouTube.
Or click this link: http://youtu.be/86-sVi3vZAA
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 Aardvark has received a highly complimentary mention in a brand-new book by composer/educator Graham Collier entitled the jazz composer: moving music off the paper (London: Northway Publications, 2009), p. 124.
Discussing a quartet of international ensembles, including Aardvark, and comparing these with some of the recognized names in today's big band music, Collier writes... |
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