Trumpet Madness
Ardvaark Jazz Orchestra

1. Flexology {10:49}
2. JB's Dreamtime {8:00}
3. Choices For Orchestra And Improviser {13:26}
4. Morph {6:53}
5. Trumpet Madness {7:09}
6. Spirals {17:08}
7. Voices Like Trumpets {14:04}

Trumpet Madness features several wonderful trumpeters, as well as the entire Aardvark Orchestra in both solo and collective improvisational roles. Among the trumpeters are music director Mark Harvey, soloing on Taylor Ho Bynum's Concerto for Orchestra and Improviser, Berlin-based trumpeter Rajesh Mehta, featured on Harvey's Spirals which was written especially for Mehta and his percussion collaborator Paul Lovens, and trumpeters Harvey, Ho Bynum, Mehta, Greg Kelley, and Jeanne Snodgrass on the title tune Trumpet Madness, an improvisational tour de force. K.C. Dunbar, Jimmy Leach, and Eric Dahlman round out our trumpetistic panorama as they are heard to advantage on several other tracks on the recording.
All selections were recorded in live performance, six of the seven cuts are world premieres, and throughout, they showcase the band's unique approach to blending spontaneous creation within complex structures. While there is a trumpet concept at work here, listeners will soon discover that Trumpet Madness leads inevitably and delightfully to total Aardvark madcap music-making of the highest order. To paraphrase American painter Stuart Davis, who was speaking of the influence of Guillaume Dufay's music on his abstractionist style, "trumpets used like voices/ real crazy syncopation."

Aardvark's latest CD recording Trumpet Madness was released on the prestigious London-based LEO Records label (long recognized for its commitment to challenging postmodern music), this is the band's eighth CD. Three of these have been released on the Leo Lab Records label.

What the critics are saying about The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra's Trumpet Madness

"The band's overall sounds is rumbustious, fiercely abstract, wittily parodic, multi-textured, raucous, softly crooning and all points between by turns - the closest US jazz gets to the Instabile Orchestra ... The AJO has become adept over the years at blending improvised and compositional elements, full-on free-for-all and the most delicate of sound patterns ... admirers of large-scale improvised jazz will be delighted with the exuberance, imagination and sheer brio in evidence throughout this rich, absorbing album."
(Chris Parker, JAZZ REVIEW, United Kingdom)

"Just because this venerable creative jazz institution led by Mark Harvey has been around since 1973 and has 7 earlier albums out doesn't mean we can take them for granted or make any assumptions about what they'll come up with next - this is a really shocking record that breaks a lot of new ground ... It's a trumpet hoedown with all kinds of ingenious techniques swirling in the orchestral sound mass, but by no stretch is this free improv; Harvey's far-ranging compositional palette is on display once again with a synthesis of various strains of large ensemble composition ... Each piece on this 77-minute disc has a distinct identity and an ambitious compositional agenda [such as] 'JB's Dreamtime,' a gorgeous, brooding, gossamer construction in honor of Jaki Byard who was closely affiliated with a number of Aardvark members ... The trumpet obsessions has surfaced before ... but TRUMPET MADNESS takes it to dazzling extremes, while also offering non-trumpet-centric works that would make for a deeply engaging album in themselves."
(Michael Anton Parker, DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY, New York City)

"Une musique ou l'écriture est complexe, qui fournit des paysages orchestraux d'une diversité rare, imaginative et tres colorée ... Un univers d'une grande fraicheur aux structures complexes, mais qui le merite d'ouvrir cet orchestre vers un monde ou le future est constamment present."
(LES DISQUES, France)

"Three decades is a long time for any group to survive ... so credit is due to this Boston based aggregation ... .they've sidestepped the time-tested big band formula in favour of broader compositional concepts ... this programme ... joyfully juxtaposes amorphous timbres, stop and start escapades, cinematic moods and multiple soloists who mumble, sputter and soliloquise in harmony with their surroundings."
(Art Lange, THE WIRE, United Kingdom)

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: Mark Harvey (trumpet); Arni Cheatham, Peter Bloom, Mark Messier, Chris Rakowski, Phil Scarff, Will Swwank, Dan Zupan (saxes & woodwinds); Eric Dahlman, K.C. Dunbar, Taylor Ho Bynum, Greg Kelley, Jimmy Leach, Rajesh Mehta, Jeanne Snodgrass (trumpets); Russell Jewell, Jay Keyser, Jeff Marsanskis, Bob Pilkington (trombones); Bill Lowe (bass trombone, tuba); Dan Shaud (French horn); Richard Nelson (guitar); John Funkhouser, John Voigt, Jesse Williams (string bass); Jerry Edwards (electric bass); Harry Wellott (drums); Craig Ellis, Paul Lovens (percussion)