For those unaware, smaller than a traditional big band, but bigger than a combo, Russ Anixter’s Hippie Big Band are a jazz band that plays rock music. They also play straight-ahead jazz, funk, pretty ballads and some free improvisation. Sometimes within the same arrangement.

The Hippie Big Band has given Anixter the opportunity to combine craft and art (or arts and crafts.) He starts with the different types of music that he loves, and applies his Master’s Degree in jazz composition from Manhattan School of Music where he was a student of Manny Albam and Rich Derosa.

He then adds to that over 30 years as a music copyist for Broadway Shows where he learned orchestration for small and medium sized ensembles, and how to get more from less. All of these arrangements are written for these specific players who have all been with him now collectively since they all emerged from the pandemic.

1. I Saw Her Standing There
2. Freddie’s Dead with Danny Louis
3. I Walk on Guilded Splinters
4. Freeway Jam
5. Shakedown Street
6. Bird Song [with Erica von Kleist]
7. A Remark You Made
8. Compared to What
9. No Quarter/Bitches Brew

Having also been a music copyist in NYC for over 30 years, Anixter and his big band open their new collective musical wonderment on an incredible arrangement of I Saw Her Standing There and the funky Freddie’s Dead with Danny Louis and then bring us the veritably cinematic I Walk on Guilded Splinters and the fervently-grooved Freeway Jam.

Along next are the free-flowing musical majesties of Shakedown Street which is in turn backed seamlessly by the horn-driven, lushly orchestrated Bird Song (with Erica von Kleist), the low slung ambiance of A Remark You Made, the set rounding out on the upbeat and joyful Compared to What, coming to an all-too-soon close on the organically sewn, melodiously harmonic No Quarter/Bitches Brew.

Russ Anixter: Arrangements & Orchestrations:
Matt Hong: Alto Sax, Flute, Bass Clarinet
Stan Harrison: Tenor Sax, Clarinet
Frank Vacin: Bari & Soprano Saxes, Alto Flute, Bassoon
Matt Owens: Trumpet and Flugelhorn
Audrey Flores: French Horn
Dan Levine: Trombone
Jack Schatz: Bass Trombone
Bill Hayes: Vibraphone, Xylophone, Congas, Toys
Michael Aarons: Guitar
Steve Count: Bass
Scott Neumann: Drums

Special guests:
Danny Louis: Organ on Freddie’s Dead
Erica von Kleist: Piccolo on Birdsong

Official Purchase Link