Assa Kook Big Band
After an excellent debut at Big Band Festival #5, Assa Kook Big Band returns for another performance due to its success and enthusiastic responses. Assa Kook, a talented young musician, leads 16 top musicians with his original compositions and arrangements. The orchestra will perform his original works alongside arrangements to standards from the Great American Songbook.
After an excellent debut at Big Band Festival #5, Assa Kook Big Band returns for another performance due to its success and enthusiastic responses. Assa Kook, a talented young musician, leads 16 top musicians with his original compositions and arrangements. The orchestra will perform his original works alongside arrangements to standards from the Great American Songbook.
Following a remarkable debut performance at the Big Band Festival #5, the Asa Cook Big Band returns for another show due to success and enthusiastic responses. Orchestras are not born every day, and writing original compositions and arrangements for a big band is a very demanding task. Asa Cook, a young and gifted musician, surprises with his audacity and takes the stage with 16 (!) of the best musicians around, showcasing his original pieces and arrangements—a very unconventional achievement for a musician of his age in the local scene, and beyond. Asa, one of the prominent and sought-after trumpet players in our region, has formed and presents a tight and personal orchestral voice, writing specially intended for this orchestra, fully utilizing the range and variety of colors of the large ensemble. The orchestra will perform Asa's original compositions, alongside arrangements of standards from the Great American Songbook. The music connects traditional groove and swing with a contemporary-modern approach to sound and orchestration, viewing the big band as a full-fledged orchestra.
Asa's inspirations are big band leaders Thad Jones and Bob Brookmeyer, who defined what a modern big band is. The arrangements maintain deep groove and swing in the style of Basie and Ellington, but with more sophisticated harmonies and complex structures, inner movement, and interaction between the sections, with almost symphonic thinking, featuring polyphonic layers. These influences are evident in Asa's music and arrangements, but the musical compass directing the project is personal and distinct, young and innovative on one hand, and confident on the other.
Musicians:
- Ori Menashe, Yonatan Cohen, Asaf Harris, Yuval Drabkin, Dror Ben-Gur - Saxophones
- Yuval Peleg, Yuval Shapira, Yonatan Kozlovsky - Trumpets
- Oded Meir, Leon List, Yoav Tripman, Noam Greenfeld - Trombones
- Guy Moskovich - Piano
- Omri Abarbanel - Bass
- Yonatan Rosen - Drums
- Asa Cook - Trumpet, Compositions and Arrangements
📷 Yuval Peleg
