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GORDON GOODWIN – cont...
Gordon Goodwin
Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 Grammy Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of Incredits from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and eight Grammy nominations.
Here’s another impressive number to add to the list: Eighteen. As in the number of musicians in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, one of the most exciting large jazz ensembles on the planet. Populated by L.A.’s finest players, the Big Phat Band takes the big band tradition into the new millennium with a contemporary, highly original sound featuring Gordon’s witty, intricate, and hard-swinging compositions in a veritable grab bag of styles: swing, latin, blues, classical, rock and even an homage to Looney Tunes. And they’re all captured on three critically-acclaimed CDs…soon to be a fourth.
A steady, persistent audio diet of the giants of jazz, pop, rock and funk has nourished Gordo’s being since childhood. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Tower of Power--among many others--filled the well for the music Gordo makes with his band today. Music that, like that of those other bands, is nothing less than astonishing when it’s experienced live.
Gordon’s ability to combine jazz excellence with any musical style makes his writing appealing to fans across the spectrum. That’s why both beboppers and headbangers dig Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band.
Established in 2000, the Big Phat Band’s debut recording Swingin’ For The Fences, (Silverline Records) featured guests such as Arturo Sandoval, Eddie Daniels and made history as the first commercially available DVD audio title ever released and the first DVD audio title to receive two Grammy nominations.
The band’s second album XXL (Silverline Records) was released on DVD-Audio and compact disc in 2003, charting its first week. XXL garnered three Grammy nominations for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Best Instrumental Composition (Hunting Wabbits) and Best Instrumental Arrangement with Vocals (Comes Love with Brian McKnight and Take 6), while winning the Surround Sound Award for Best Made for Surround Sound Title. The list of guest artists matched the high quality of the first release and featured, among others, Johnny Mathis and the incomparable Michael Brecker.
The Big Phat Band’s third album The Phat Pack (Immergent Records) with guest stars Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Eddie Daniels and Take 6 got one Grammy nomination and spent 31 weeks on the Billboard jazz charts.
Gordon has built a larger-than-life reputation for his composing, arranging, and playing skills—keyboards and woodwinds--throughout the music industry. Ray Charles, Christina Aguilera, Johnny Mathis, Toni Braxton, John Williams, Natalie Cole, David Foster, Sarah Vaughn, Mel Torme, Brian McKnight and Quincy Jones are just a few of the artists with whom he has written for, recorded and performed. Gordon has conducted world-renowned symphony orchestras in Atlanta, Dallas, Utah, Seattle, Toronto and London.
Gordon’s cinematic scoring and orchestration craft can be heard on such films as Get Smart, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Glory Road, National Treasure, The Incredibles, Remember The Titans, Armageddon, Bad Boys II, The Majestic, Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds, Enemy of the State, Star Trek Nemesis, and even the classic cult film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Gordon’s soundtrack to Bah Hum Duck!--a wacky Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck riff on the classic A Christmas Carol-- features the Big Phat Band’s patented sound.
“The Big Phat Band provides potent testimony to the sheer exhilaration of big band jazz…a combination of crisp accuracy and fiery soloing.” – Don Heckman, LA Times
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Patti Austin, David Foster, Mel Torme, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughn, Quincy Jones, Barry Manilow, The Hi-Lo's, Leslie Uggams, The Manhattan Transfer, Diana Ross, Lee Greenwood, Doc Severinsen, Paul Anka, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Vicki Carr, Henry Mancini, Ray Charles, Maureen McGovern, Simone, Kevin Mahagony, Toni Braxton, Christina Augillera, Bill Watrous, Louie Bellson, Pepper Adams, Clare Fischer, Bill Perkins
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