Jazz Arranger Tailors Piece to River City Brass Band

By Bob Karlovits

Jazz arranger Mike Tomaro sounds pleased at having the chance to do something a little different musically.

“Sure, there will be jazz elements in the piece, but it won’t really be a jazz piece,” he says of his “Portrait in Brass and Steel,” which will premiere tonight at the River City Brass Band concert in Monroeville.

Tomaro is director of jazz studies at Duquesne University, Uptown, and a busy arranger in jobs all over the country. He is the featured composer in this series of concerts as the band plays new works it is commissioning for each concert in this calendar year to celebrate the city’s 250th birthday.

Tomaro is a busy man in this show, “The Talk of the Town,” the brass band’s popular annual big-band program. Besides his new work, he also has arranged tributes to Pittsburgh composers, TV’s Fred Rogers and guitarist George Benson.

All three of those works will feature vocals by Lisa Ferraro.

The concert also will feature brass-band versions of classics such as “Tuxedo Junction,”"Stardust,”"Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and “Two O’Clock Jump,” as well as Tomaro’s arrangement of Benny Golson’s “Blues March.”

But Tomaro is most enthusiastic about the “Portrait in Steel and Brass.” He says River City musical director Denis Colwell gave him the chance to “write whatever I wanted,” so long as it was connected in some fashion to the city.

Tomaro says he decided to write a work that was fitting for the band, more than necessarily a jazz piece.

“Brass and steel seem appropriate for this town,” he says.

(c) 2008 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.