Kim Richmond – Advanced Big Band Arranging
Part two of Kim's big band series, featuring guests JIM McNEELY, SCOTT HEALY and KEVIN VAN DEN ELZEN
These are some of the topics covered in this class:
* Review of basics, including sounds of the sections, voicing rules, transparency, form
* Textural and unusual voicing devices
* Harmonic devices, including parallelisms, pedals, chord choices, intros and endings
Jim McNeely was born in Chicago, moving to New York City in 1975. In 1978 he joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. He spent six years as a featured soloist with that band and its successor, Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra (now The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra). 1981 saw the beginning of Jim’s 4-year tenure as pianist/composer with the Stan Getz Quartet. From 1990 until 1995 he held the piano chair in the Phil Woods Quintet. At the present time, he leads his own tentet, his own trio, and he appears as soloist at concerts and festivals worldwide.
Jim’s reputation as composer/arranger and conductor for large jazz bands continues to flourish, and has earned him ten Grammy nominations. In 1996 he re-joined The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra as pianist and Composer-in Residence. He is also chief conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, where he has collaborated on projects with great artists such as Dave Holland, John Scofield, Luciana Souza, Branford Marsalis, Dave Douglas, Ambrose Akinmusire, and many others. Other recent work includes projects with the Danish Radio Big Band (where he was chief conductor for five years), the Metropole Orchestra (Netherlands), the Swiss Jazz Orchestra, and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. The New York Times has called his writing “exhilarating”; DownBeat has said that his music is “eloquent enough to be profound”. And he won a Grammy for his work on the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s “Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard” on Planet Arts Records.
Jim has appeared as sideman on numerous recordings led by major artists such as Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer, and Phil Woods. He has numerous albums under his own name. The latest is the Grammy-nominated “Barefoot Dances and Other Visions”, with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band on the Planet Arts label (“a powerful suite…superb…demonstrates a feeling for arranging orchestral colors that is magical”—All About Jazz.com)
Teaching is also an important element of Jim’s work. He is on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music. He was involved with the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop for 24 years, including 16 years as musical director. He has appeared at numerous college jazz festivals in the U.S. as performer and clinician. He has also done clinics and major residencies at dozens of institutions in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and Egypt.
Kim Richmond is an active and versatile musician based in the Los Angeles area. His first love is jazz, and his primary jazz voice is the alto saxophone. He has, however, been involved in nearly every facet of the professional music industry, both as a player and as a composer/arranger. His instruments are alto, soprano, tenor and baritone saxes, clarinet, bass clarinet, and flutes. Kim has been a member of the orchestras of Stan Kenton, Louis Bellson, Bob Florence, Bill Holman, and Vinny Golia among others. His own Kim Richmond Concert Jazz Orchestra is a workshop for his writing, conducting and leading. His Ensemble (sextet) is a platform for more free-form expression and improvsation with the members playing and Kim's writing being the key factors. His current group is The KIM-PROJECT, co-led with vocalist Kimberly Ford, and is a tribute to the music of Herbie Hancock and Joni Mitchill.
Kim is also a consummate educator. He was for 12 years an adjunct professor in the Jazz Studies department of University of Southern California (teaching combos, composition and saxophone), and does numerous jazz camps and clinics in the Spring and Summer of each year. He is on staff at many of the Jim Widner Summer Jazz Camps, and is involved in running the Northwoods Jazz Camp for grown-ups and the Santa Barbara Jazz Workshop (with co-director Kimberly Ford). He most recently was an instructor in the Jazz Department of California Institute of the Arts, and at California State University, Fullerton. For many years Kim served as Music Director for Los Angeles Music Center's Spotlight Awards, where he directed his orchestra and did arrangements for young students' performances.
Kim is a past-President of ASMAC (American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers), which provides masterclasses and avenues of learning for all interested. Whatever his mode of expression, be it instrumental performance, composition, arranging and conducting, KIM RICHMOND is striving to express a uniquely original voice, combining his extensive experience with the new sounds of our evolving musical world.
Kim is a Selmer artist and endorses all Selmer saxophones and other woodwinds. He is also a Vandoren artist, and uses Vandoren reeds, mouthpieces and other accessories. In spite of his busy schedule in the professional music world, KIM RICHMOND enjoys keeping in touch with the educational music field by serving as guest lecturer, conductor and guest soloist at college music festivals and workshops around the country.
Composer, arranger and pianist Sylvester Rivers has recorded with numerous hit artists including Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, The Jacksons, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Mathis, Aretha Franklin, New Edition, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Barry White, Marc Bolan & T. Rex, Ray Parker, Jr. & Raydio, Deniece Williams, The Fifth Dimension and many others. Composing, arranging and orchestrating for television and film, as well, such as the television series Fame, songs for the Kevin Bacon/Laurence Fishburne film Quicksilver, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Arsenio Hall Show and numerous others, he has been prolific in producing music throughout a wide spectrum.
