Saxophonist Ian O'Beirne came to prominence touring the world as a saxophonist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. In 2014, O'Beirne released Glasswork, his debut album with his quintet, which was acclaimed by many critics for its compositional fluency and for O'Beirne's outstanding playing throughout. O'Beirne is now releasing his latest record with his Slowbern Big Band, Dreams of Daedalus, which features a set of his original music and arrangements. It's a vivacious, bright, and inventive big band record which will surely delight. Lush orchestration, memorable solis and a bold compositional vision showcase O'Beirne as a top-flight composer, with saxophone chops to boot.
O'Beirne has been leading Slowbern (formerly Slowburn) since 2010 and he describes the band as a "community" with a large pool of potential members circulating in and out depending upon availability. Dreams of Daedalus features a cast of musicians who have been there since the beginning - Carl Schultz (tenor saxophone), Felix Manzi (drums), Josh Anderson (trumpet), Sandy Eldred (bass) and Dave Bozenhard (guitar). The band also includes many of O'Beirne's old professors at UArts in Philadelphia including John Swana and Tony Miceli, both Philly jazz legends. A trumpet hero of O'Beirne's, Nick Marchione was able to play lead trumpet on the album; Sean Bailey also lent his clarinet acumen to the project doing woodwind overdubs.
For this record O'Beirne knew he wanted to both build on the way the band had been playing together for years, while also stretching his compositional and conceptual skills. Dreams of Daedalus is somewhat of a concept album, the origins of which go back to both a nascent novel of science fiction that O'Beirne has been writing and, jointly, his experience in the Air Force stationed both in the US and abroad. Using these points as his North Star, O'Beirne was able to create a book of music that abounds with creativity, and takes its inspiration from each source equally.
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