Merry Christmas! GBB at Tioga Town Center

The Gainesville Big Band, under the direction of Marco Thomas, will help ring in the holidays at the Tioga Town Center's annual Christmas celebration. This event will be Saturday, December 6, 2014 at 4:00pm.

Downtown Arts

The Gainesville Big Band, under the direction of Marco Thomas, will perform at the Gainesville Downtown Arts Show Saturday, November 8, 2014 at 2:00pm on the Bo Diddley Plaza Stage.

Performance Schedule for Oct.-Dec.

The Gainesville Big Band's performance schedule:

10/19-Sweet Dreams Ice Cream-Fall Chocolate Night-5:00pm

11/8-Downtown Arts Festival-2:00pm

12/6-Tioga Town Center Holiday Concert

More events coming soon. Please join us for all our public events. Don't forget, you can hire the GBB for your private or corporate event as well. We have started booking for 2015!

GBB at Fall Chocolate Night

Don't miss the Gainesville Big Band, conducted by Marco Thomas, at Sweet Dreams Ice Cream of Gainesville. It is third and final performance for the band's favorite ice cream shop in 2014. We play Sunday, October 19, 2014 at 5:00pm.

New Vacancy

The Gainesville Big Band announces the following vacancy:

3rd Trumpet(9/27/14)

If you are interested, please visit our audition page for the requirements at

http://gvillebigband.blogspot.com/p/audition-requirments.html

Contact us at gvillebigband@cox.net or 352-317-3508 to schedule an audition.

Performance Update

The Gainesville Big Band, under the direction of Marco Thomas, will perform at Sweet Dreams Sunday, September 21 at 5:00pm.

2014 Fall Performance Schedule

The Gainesville Big Band's performance schedule:

9/14-Sweet Dreams of Gainesville Ice Cream 10th Anniversary Celebration

9/26-The Village-residents only

10/10-Oak Hammock-residents only

10/11-Private Wedding

11/8-Downtown Arts Festival

More events coming soon. Please join us for all our public events. Don't forget, you can hire the GBB for your private or corporate event as well. We have started booking for 2015!

Gainesville Big Band Press Kit

We've updated our press kit for 2014. Take a look at all the things we have to offer to make your event a memorable one. You can follow this link:

http://youtu.be/i7t0X7p4iic


or click on the link to the right under Hire the Gainesville Big Band. Don't forget to leave a comment.

Food for thought

Here is an article that concerns jazz and classical music as it relates to online streaming. Happy reading!


It’s not just David Byrne and Radiohead: Spotify, Pandora and how streaming music kills jazz and classical

Gainesville Big Band

Hello everyone,

After much thought and discussion, the GCJB is changing it's name to the Gainesville Big Band. We are re-branding and are trying to build a bigger audience as well as have the opportunity to play in more venues. We are very much still a part of the Gainesville community but as musicians, we'd like to be able to play functions(i.e. jazz festivals) outside of Gainesville as well. Unfortunately, having "community" in the title limited us from doing that. Some people felt that we are a bunch of people that just get together and play for fun and don't sound very good. While we do play for fun and the love of jazz, we do take the music we make very seriously. When we went by Jazz Band, that left our size up to interpretation. Some people thought we were anything from a trio to a large dance band to everything in between.  We were often confused with the Gainesville Community Band because our names were similar. The titles were off by one word. At times, people thought they were getting a concert band instead of a jazz band. Changing our name to big band will clear up any confusion of who we are and what we do.

While this is a little change, it still is a change. One thing that will not change is the quality music that we present to public and our private events. We were very successful as the GCJB but we are hoping to grow that success as the GBB  We are excited to begin a new chapter of the band and hope to see you at one of shows in the near future.

Sincerely,

Marco Thomas
Gainesville Big Band Director

Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Date Change

The Gainesville Community Jazz Band will now perform at Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Store on Sunday July 20 at 6:00pm for their annual Crazy Flavor Night. Come out and enjoy some cool jazz along with some cool ice cream. Sorry for the inconvenience. Visit their website:

http://gainesvilleicecream.com/

Explore New Music

Explore new music with our jazz blogs links. Some of the music will definitely take you in a different direction and some music will be original but in a traditional format. Get adventurous. Here are three artists to get you started:



Tim Hegarty

Sara Serpa

Ellen Rowe

Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Crazy Flavor Night

The Gainesville Community Jazz Band will perform at Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Store on Sunday July 13 at 6:00pm for their annual Crazy Flavor Night. Come out and enjoy some cool jazz along with some cool ice cream. Visit their website:

http://gainesvilleicecream.com/

Working in the Studio

Here we are working in the studio. We are recording for our promo CD at Medusa Productions. It was a pretty intense session but we had a lot of fun working on this project. We will post more pictures and audio soon. 

GCJB Father's Day June 8 Concert

As you know we have a concert next Sunday, June 8 at 2:00 pm at Grace United Methodist Church. Here is what you can expect:

1. Concert will run about 45 minutes-1 hr.
2. We are not playing your usual Miller, Basie, Dorsey type of set. We can play those charts but we are not doing a purely swing set for this concert. We are playing charts by Charles Mingus, Gordon Goodwin, and Bob Curnow. We are playing charts made famous by Buddy Rich.
3. Expect to hear some of our soloists on our charts. It's not one person playing one a solo for 45 minutes but we do have a few people that will take a chorus or two.
4. We do have a vocalist. She will usually sing in the middle of our set.
5. Expect to have a good time listening to some good music.

Selections will include

o   Peter Gunn

o   Riff in Peace

o   Laura

o   September Swing

o   Mr. Lucky

o   Love Chant

o   Out of the Night

o   S’Wonderful

o   Too Close for Comfort

o   Too Darn Hot

Poster Artist

Our poster was designed by local artist Katie Cation. Thank you so much for your help. We truly appreciate it. 

Father's Day Concert Flyer

Father's Day Concert

On Sunday June 8, the GCJB will have a Father's Day Concert at Grace at Ft. Clarke United Methodist Church on Newberry Rd. We are having the performance a week before Father's Day. The concert will be at 2:00 pm.

*Grace at Ft. Clarke United Methodist Church is located at 9325 Newberry Rd. Gainesville, FL 32606

Lakeside Jazz Festival

The band played at the Lakeside Jazz Festival in Port Orange, FL. We had an awesome time and heard some really great music played by some fantastic young musicians. Here are a few pics. We will add video and audio to our Youtube channel soon.

April 12-13

This Saturday, we are playing at Grace at Fort Clark United Methodist church's Spring Carnival from 3-4. Bring the kids out and have a good time.

Sunday we are playing at our favorite ice cream shoppe Sweet Dreams from 4-5. It is chocolate night! Hope to see you there!

GCJB at Lakeside Jazz Festival

GCJB will be traveling down to Port Orange for the Lakeside Jazz Festival on April 26. It is a high school jazz competition and fundraiser for the local area students that has featured artists. We are fortunate to be included as guest artists. We will play Saturday night approximately 5:45pm. It's our first official jazz festival and hopefully not our last.

Don't forget...

We are playing tomorrow at the Spring Arts Festival Center Stage at 2:00pm. We hope to see you there.

Bass Player Needed

We are currently looking for a bass player for an anticipated vacancy.  Must be able to attend scheduled rehearsals and gigs. Please see our new audition page for a detailed list of requirements. Email gvillejband@cox.net for all other inquiries.  

Spring Arts Festival 2014

The GCJB will be at the Spring Arts Festival at Center Stage Sunday, April 6 at 2:00pm. Hope to see you there.