This band is truly well grounded – the tones that dominate its music seem to come from the deepest depths of the earth, which is the reason Joseph Daley called his big band “The Earth Tones Ensemble”.

He was interested in using the rich colours of the earth as an inspiration for the orchestral textures used in his compositions. The line-up accordingly includes a large number of instruments in the area of the deepest basses, and the band leader quite deliberately has them play into the very lowest registers possible. “I wanted to make the timbres of the low-pitched instruments the core of my composition, and wanted the other instruments to be able to rest on those deep tones”.

Joseph Daley is himself a “low brass specialist”, plays the euphonium, trombone and tuba, a native of New York. He has worked, toured and recorded with many of the members of this ensemble. When he asked them to be part of the unusual Earth Tones Ensemble project, they all agreed: Howard Johnson and Scott Robinson, played bass giants rarely seen and heard, for example, the contrabass clarinet, the contrabass saxophone and the bass sarrusophone. (a bass instrument developed in the nineteenth century by Frenchman Pierre-Auguste Sarrus and akin to the saxophone). The appearance of these colossi alone is impressive, to say nothing of their sound, next to them the tuba, euphonium and bass trombone played by Bob Stewart, Joseph Daley and Earl McIntrye appear small.

But not just the deep bass instrumentalists accompanied Daley into the studio. The names of the other musicians – Marty Ehrlich, Lou Soloff, Stanton Davis, Gary Valente, Vincent Chancey, to name just a few reads like a Who’s Who of American jazz. It really is an illustrious twenty-five member big band Daley rounded up for his compositions.

He has a fabulous team at his disposal, and he says, “I wanted to have instrumental.......
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