The New York Times has pinpointed a “feeling for a rugged but jaunty experimentalism” in the music of trombone veteran Joe Fiedler, a figure as esteemed in New York jazz circles as he is in the Afro-Caribbean and pop scenes. He’s an adventurous improviser and bandleader whose small-band outings include Will Be Fire, The Crab, Sacred Chome Orb, Joe Fiedler Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff, I’m In and Like, Strange. His three releases by the unique low-brass unit Big Sackbut — a trombone/tuba corollary of sorts to the World Saxophone Quartet — have also cemented Fiedler’s reputation as a musical thinker with boundless imagination.
A Pittsburgh native and a New Yorker since 1993, Fiedler studied at Allegheny College and the University of Pittsburgh before launching into work as an in-demand sideman. He’s become one of the first-call trombonists in the world, featured on more than 100 recordings. He’s had extensive experience in the heart of the flowering big band scene, playing with Maria Schneider, Chico O’Farrill, the Mingus Big Band, Andrew Hill, Jason Lindner, Dafnis Prieto, Kenny Wheeler, Satoko Fujii, Miguel Zenón and many more. In smaller units he’s played with Lee Konitz, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Myra Melford, Matt Darriau’s Ballin’ the Jack, David Weiss’s Endangered Species and a host of others. Fiedler also paid years of dues on the salsa and Latin circuit with Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmieri, Willie Colon, Ralph Irizarry and other major acts. His pop credits include Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Wyclef Jean to name a few.
Downbeat and others have noted Fiedler’s effortless way of traversing charged free improvisation and music of more established tonal and formal parameters — “out” vs. “in,” as jazz musicians sometimes call it. He’s apt to draw out long and lustrous melodic tones while also manipulating his trombone sound with multiphonics and other extended techniques (playing one note and singing a higher note, sometimes producing an overtone to complete a chord). The deep sense of blues, tailgate and other earlier jazz approaches to the horn come through in Fiedler’s music, as do the sonic innovations of Mangelsdorff, or the mainstream hard-bop aesthetics represented by Slide Hampton, J.J. Johnson, Steve Turre and so many more. Melding it all into a signature voice, Fiedler harnesses the top talents of dear friends and associates in an endless quest to broaden his instrument’s reach. As veteran journalist Dan Ouellette has written, “It takes a true believer in [the trombone’s] potential for jazz esprit to courageously explore its range of conversation. That’s why Joe Fiedler is so impressive.”
For the past fifteen years Fiedler has also served as “Music Director: Arrangements/Orchestrations” (working as composer, arranger, orchestrator and trombonist) for Sesame Street, garnering two Emmy nominations. Over fourteen seasons he has written hundreds of arrangements and crafted more than 10,000 underscoring cues.
Joe Fiedler • trombone
Ryan Keberle • trombone
Curtis Hasselbring • trombone
Marcus Rojas • tuba