Local Jazz Act

Fully Celebrated Orchestra

Mo' Better

The ice is breaking somewhat in our Local Jazz category, and maybe that's because local jazz itself is loosening up -- it's not better than it used to be, just different, and there's more of it. Last year avant-string-based improv ensemble Saturnalia stepped out to shake the dominance of scene veterans the Fringe, Myanna, and the Either/Orchestra, who'd collectively monopolized the poll since its inception (see "Winners' Gallery"). This year, it's the Fully Celebrated Orchestra who pulled way ahead of the pack. It's easy to think of Fully Celebrated as upstarts, but in fact they've been around for a decade -- first as a trio, then in the past couple of years as a quartet, since the fine young trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum joined Jim Hobbs in the front line. The FCOs first gained notoriety in the rock clubs -- or, at least, it was the rock crowd that first created the buzz. Maybe that's because the band are proponents of old-fashioned avant-garde inclusiveness: funk, Latin, blues, Balkan, and any number of "world" melodies, scales, and rhythms show up in the FCO book, with plenty of free-jazz-collective chatter. The rock crowd has been as receptive as any to "extreme" jazz, and it doesn't hurt that the quartet can lay an out-there squall of horns over a very deep groove (carved by bassist Timo Shanko and drummer Django Carranza). Other reference points are Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Thomas Chapin, but the band's personality is its own -- a quality that's recognized at both the Middle East Bakery and the Regattabar.

-- Jon Garelick