Marco Katz

Marco Katz

Marco Katz in Buenos Aires 2009
Background information
Born March 16, 1957
Origin New York City, New York
Genres American music, jazz, salsa
Instruments Vocal, guitar, trombone
Years active 1970-

Marco Katz (born March 16, 1957, in New York City, USA) plays trombone and arranges and composes music for band, brass quintet and other musical ensembles. The reviewer Adam Gaines, in a review of the Bundee Brothers Bone Band album, wrote that "Katz's compositions are a real highlight of the disc. His trombone writing is expertly idiomatic, and his music is harmonically interesting without being obtuse."[1]

Biography

As a jazz and salsa trombonist in New York City, Katz became known for his unique use of the plunger mute.[2][3] Katz performed as a featured soloist with Mon Rivera and recorded with the Lebron Brothers and Carlos Barbería y su Orquesta Kubavana. In 1978, he was nominated “Trombonist of the Year” by Latin NY magazine for his recording work with the Alegre All-Stars director Charlie Palmieri. Writing in Herencia Latina, the music critic Jairo Grijalba Ruiz noted that "The Heavyweight" by Palmieri included "a solo with mute by Marco Katz, which is truly extraordinary and at the same time brief demonstration of his style."[4]

In 1994, he recorded "Tubby the Tuba Meets a Jazz Band" for Tubby the Tuba and Friends, an Angel Records release with narrations by Paul Tripp and performances by Bob Stewart on tuba, Jimmy Owens on trumpet, Paquito D'Rivera on clarinet, Katz on trombone, Chuck Folds on piano, John Thomas on percussion and Oliver Jackson on drums.[5][6] This track was re-released as part of Tubby the Tuba Presents Play it Happy, on the Koch Records, now E1 Music, catalog with Meredith Vieira as narrator.[7]

Katz.s score for Zoey's Zoo (Oh Yeah! Cartoons on the Nickelodeon channel) helped the Nickelodeon production win first place at the 31st Annual International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) East Animation Festival on May 7, 2000.[8] Katz’s compositions have been performed by the New York All-City High School band at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, his "Love Songs Theme" was broadcast nationally on VH1, and his arrangement of "Good Old Mountain Dew" was performed by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. In 2013, Centaur Records released his song cycle for voice and piano based on Piedras del cielo by Pablo Neruda.[9]

Katz earned a Performing-Artists-in-the-Schools certification from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1987. Five years later, he studied gamelan music in Bali. From 2001-2002, he lived in Spain and studied art, politics and literature at the Complutense University of Madrid, textual training that helped him formulate critical views on the place of musicians in contemporary society. He later earned his BA and MA at Humboldt State University and a PhD at the University of Alberta. In the twenty-first century, Katz has turned to writing on music and other cultural topics. Palgrave Macmillan published his academic study of novels, Music and Identity in Twentieth Century Literature from Our America: Noteworthy Protagonists, a book that considers links between music and literature in works by Gabriel García Márquez, Alejo Carpentier, Zora Neale Hurston, John Okada, Joy Kogawa, and Tomson Highway.[10] Katz's English and Spanish language articles appear in the Routledge journal Popular Music and Society,[11] Comparative American Studies,[12] Atlantic Studies,[13] Espéculo (Complutense University of Madrid),[14] La Guagua[15] and Culturas Populares (University of Alcalá).[16] Mundo Universitario, a program televised by the University of Valle, featured "Marco Katz, master of literature and professional musician, who was the last trombonist with the legends Charlie Palmieri and Mon Rivera. He presented at JALLA [Jornadas Andinas de Literatura Latino Americana] a paper on the relation between music and literature." [17]

Katz's arrangements and compositions are published by Bourne Co. Music Publishers, International Music Company and Carl Fischer Music.[18] The arrangements for the International Music Company often employ classical compositions in settings for trombones and brass quintets. Although some of these works, especially the trombone trios and quartets, have been well received by educators, a reviewer in the International Trumpet Guild Journal finds fault with Katz's brass quintet arrangements of music by Juan Morel Campos. The reviewer objects to Katz's positing of Morel Campos as an important composer, noting "he does not merit a mention in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians." As for the works themselves, the reviewer finds them "rhythmically interesting but rather simple melodically."[19]

Discography

As trombonist:

As composer:

Music publications

Compositions:

Arrangements:

Books

Published articles

In English

In Spanish

References

  1. ↑ Adam Gaines, >"Bundee Brothers Bone Band: A Review", Online Trombone Journal
  2. ↑ Marco Katz at trombone-usa.com (accesssed 11 March 2013)
  3. ↑ Dewan, Shaila K. "Finding Ways to Rehearse Without Being Cursed; Musicians Improvise, and Go High-Tech, In Search of Places to Practice Their Riffs." New York Times. 17 August 2000.
  4. ↑ Grijalba Ruiz, Jairo, "Un encuentro en Popoyán con Marco Katz." (Charlie Palmieri incluyó un solo de trombón con sordina a cargo de Marco Katz, el cual es en verdad una extraordinaria y al mismo tiempo muy breve demostración de su estilo.) Herencia Latina. Dec. 2012-Jan. 2013
  5. ↑ Allegro, Volume CVIII No. 9
  6. ↑ sydmusic.com: Tubby article
  7. ↑ Tubby the Tuba Presents Play it Happy! at All Music
  8. ↑ IMDb The Internet Movie Data Base
  9. ↑ Las Piedras del cielo at Classics Online
  10. ↑ Music and Identity in Twentieth Century Literature from Our America at Classics Online
  11. ↑ "Index by Author", Popular Music and Society
  12. ↑ Katz, M., "Sounds From Nowhere: Musical Protagonists by Alejo Carpentier and Zora Neale Hurston", Comparative American Studies, Volume 10, Number 1, March 2012 , pp. 30-44(15)
  13. ↑ "As the sun set on Europe: Marvelous Realism and a new place for America", Atlantic Studies, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2012
  14. ↑ Katz, M., "Che y Teddy: el desarrollo de imágenes populares en la pantalla grande"
  15. ↑ Katz, M., "Manifiesto", La Guagua, 9 October 2009
  16. ↑ Katz, M., "Tiras, timbres y estereotipos: el negro Memín Pinguín y la manipulación de la cultura popular con representaciones étnicas", Culturas Populares. Revista Electrónica 5 (July–December 2007).
  17. ↑ Arboleda, Andrea. Marco Katz, maestro de literatura y músico de profesión, fue el último trombonista de las leyendas Charlie Palmieri y Mon Rivera. Presentó en la JALLA su ponencia sobre la relación entre la música y la literatura on YouTube. 21 August 2012
  18. ↑ sheetmusicplus.com: Search result for Katz
  19. ↑ Johansen, David. "Review of Four Danzas". International Trumpet Guild Journal. June 2002: p. 74.

External links