About SJO
The Spokane Jazz Orchestra is a 17-piece ensemble made up of some of the best jazz musicians in the Northwest. Their concerts draw from the full range of jazz music – standards from icons like Count Basie and Duke Ellington – along with innovate arrangements of a wide range of music from pop to rock to bluegrass and more.
SJO was founded in 1975 and is the longest continuously performing community-supported jazz orchestra in the U.S. More than half of SJO members are college music professors, while several others are high school music teachers. Many have played professionally in big band touring groups and other jazz orchestras; others play in the Spokane Symphony Orchestra.
About Wayne Horvitz
Wayne Horvitz is an award-winning keyboard player and one of the premiere composers in the northwest. He initially came to prominence on the downtown New York scene of the '70s and '80s, working with fellow mavericks like John Zorn, Butch Morris, Bill Frisell, and others. He is an original member of Zorn's Naked City, and a co-founder, along with his wife, pianist Robin Holcomb, of the New York Composers Orchestra. He now lives in Seattle where he performs at, owns, and operates his own jazz club called the Royal Room.
He was recipient of the 2019 American Prize in Orchestral Composition and performs extensively throughout Europe, Japan, and North America. In addition to creating work for his own ensembles, he has created new work for The Kitchen, BAM, Seattle Symphony, Berlin Jazz, Nocco, Vienna Radio Orchestra, Centrum, and ACT among others.
His music is stylistically wide-ranging, yet distinctive. Wayne has earned accolades for his mix of jazz, post-rock, classical, and avant-garde influences. He has led a variety of his own groups including the Gravitas Quartet, Zony Mash, and the Four Plus One Ensemble and has recorded many albums. A 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award recipient, Horvitz has also composed for film, theater, and dance troupes,
About the Hammond Organ
The Hammond Organ has been featured to great acclaim and audience delight in some past SJO concerts. Its sound has been a basic building block for nearly every genre of music since its inception in 1935, but is especially suited to jazz improvisation and to showcasing the skill of exceptional organ players such as Wayne Horvitz (and SJO Music Director Don Goodwin who owns the Hammond that will be used in this concert). The Hammond sound is majestic, evocative, unmistakable.