Rare Breed Recording Company Releasing Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra EP
Music News | Apr 5th, 2016
Rare Breed Recording Company will be releasing a digital 2-song EP from Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra on April 29th. Physical copies will also be released, with a date TBA. The EP will feature appearances from The Expanders, in addition to Greg Lee and Alex Desert of Hepcat.
Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra is Duke Ellington meets Jamaica: the big band jazz arrangements of the 1940s colliding with the sound of early Jamaica! It is jazz! It is Jamaican jazz! And people are flocking to it, by the thousands!
These extraordinary musicians have taken Jamaican music, added big band jazz arrangements, and created a sound unique unto itself. Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra is the only one of its kind in the whole U.S. and one of only a few in the entire world.
Western Standard Time is the world’s premier Jamaican Jazz Orchestra. At a “standard” performance, there are more than 20 world-class jazz musicians. The featured performers in Western Standard Time have been awarded and/or nominated for Grammy Awards, performed on Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy television broadcasts, and played with international stars and major motion picture soundtracks: Andy Martin, Ron Stout, Wayne Bergeron, Bob Sheppard, Joey Altruda, Sean Billings, Willie Murillo, Danny Janklow, Allen Mezquida, Mike Stever, Nathan Breedlove, Brian Swartz, Adam Schroeder, and others. The band consists of west coast jazz greats who currently perform with the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, Luckman Jazz Orchestra, Bob Mintzer’s Big Band, and The Brian Setzer Orchestra.
Western Standard Time’s music has been embraced by both hardcore jazz and Jamaican music lovers the world over. DJ’s from all over the world have aired their music as well as interviewed the producers of this band. At every show they attract crowds of thousands. By infusing elements of jazz, particularly big band jazz, into the contemporary musical mix, this group of Jamaican jazz gunslingers is rebranding the music of yesteryear and propelling it into the future.
