Ferguson Nonette: Birth of the Cool
Noon, Saturday, May 29

Ferguson Nonette: Birth of the Cool will pay tribute to Miles Davis and his groundbreaking 1957 album.

The nine-piece of locally-based musicians will perform five of the original Birth of the Cool arrangements along with two similarly fashioned arrangements for nonette instrumentation -- but with a female vocal lead (DCWJBF alumna Laura Ferguson) in the place of trumpet.

Birth of the Cool featured bebop stylings with an interesting and unique instrumentation of Trumpet, Alto Sax, French Horn, Trombone, Bari Sax, Tuba, Piano, Bass, and Drums. The arrangements made full use of these timbres while melding modern classical and jazz harmonic writing. This style of arrangement marrying jazz and classical languages would later be more fully explored in Davis's further collaborations with Gil Evans on recordings like Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain, and Miles Ahead.

Trumpet David Ferguson

Alto Sax Ben Saylor

French Horn Heidi Lucas

Trombone Chris Dickinson

Bari Sax Jim Flowers

Tuba Zach Collins

Piano Shelly Insko

Bass Bob Insko

Drums Mike Kingan

Vocalist Laura Ferguson