The Arts Institute of Western Maine presents a concert by the southern Maine jazz septet Novel Jazz on Saturday November 19 at 7:30 PM at Nordica Auditorium on the campus of the University of Maine at Farmington. Admission is $12; students with ID are free. The band regularly plays throughout Maine, performed for Maine Public Radio, and appeared in a video production of Trombonist and leader Barney Balch, trumpeter Mike Mitchell, alto saxophonist Bryan Jones, drummer Bill Manning, bassist Herb Maine, guitarist David Clarke, and pianist Mickey Felder collectively have accumulated over 200 years of jazz playing.

 

Novel Jazz concentrates on the swing music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Leader Barney Balch has traveled on several occasions to the Duke Ellington Collection of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC to collect and arrange less known works from the Ellington and Strayhorn’s 3000-composition repertoire.