San Francisco, CA. (Top40 Charts/ Miraflores Music) - On Thursday, November 6, 7:30 pm North Bay saxophonist Marcia Miget will perform with Dr. Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra as part of the Marquee Jazz Series at University of Illinois Champaign Urbana's Foellinger Great Hall.
A mutual admiration society Ms. Miget has been a consistent presence performing and recording with Dr. Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra since 2004, last year playing reeds on the AAO's tenth anniversary cd, '10'. Over the last four years Marcia has performed this big band's unique repertoire at Yoshi's (San Francisco), the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Monterey, Stern Grove, and Fillmore Jazz Festivals.
Having skills that cross multiple genres she performs regularly with the Voices of Latin Rock with performance credits including Wayne Wallace's Rhythm and Rhyme, the San Francisco All Star Big Band, the Northern California Lighthouse Singers 25th Anniversary conducted by Helen Stevens and Stephen Roberts, the James Cleveland Choir and the Montclair Women's Big Band. She's played at several International Association of Jazz Educators' Conventions with the African American Jazz Caucus AllStar Big Band (in 2004 was the Featured Artist with the Historically Black Colleges' University Allstar Band). With a performance pedigree that includes multiple appearances with Carlos Santana, and such notables as Larry Ridley, Jimmy Cobb, Buddy Baker, Kenny Barron, Orestes Vilato, Frank Foster, Pete Escovedo, Donald Byrd, Tyrone Hill of Sun Ra's Arkestra, Freddy Redd, Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra, Carl Perazzo, Phish, Wayne Wallace, John Santos, Babatunde Lea, Abel Sanchez, Jorge Santana and Prophet, Jaimeo Brown and Dartanyan Brown. Her seminal work, 'Discovery', has a roster of prominent Bay Area performers in attendance, such as Paul van Wagenigen, Gary Brown, David Belove, Rebecca Mauleon, Frank Martin and John Worley.
A composer, percussionist, Guggenheim fellow, former director of the Smithsonian's Jazz Oral History Project, past Grammys Chapter President Dr. Anthony Brown brings personal and academic expertise as a BlAsian by melding Eastern and Western sounds and sensibilities. Using Asian instruments in a Big Band idiom the AAO, under the direction of Dr. Brown, delivers reimagined, redefined Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin works on the erhu (two-string Chinese violin), shakuhachi (Japanese flute), and suona (Chinese trumpet). Downbeat magazine rated Monk's Moods a 'five-star masterpiece' and one of the four best CDs of 2003. The AAO grew out of a project with an assemblage of players including bassist Mark Izu, who also plays Chinese mouth organ; Hong Wang, on reed trumpet, erhu (two-string Chinese violin), and traditional Chinese percussion; Yangqin Zhao on Chinese hammered dulcimer; trombonists Wayne Wallace and Dave Martell; reed players Melecio Magdaluyo, and Masaru Koga; and trumpeters Henry Hung and Geechi Taylor with Creative Director, Dr. Anthony Brown, on drums.
