The New Dimension - Cool Jazz: Music from Penn State
As part of an exhibit at the Palmer Museum of Art entitled "New York Cool", Penn State University broadcast this special from the Museum's lobby. Featuring classic standards and original compositions, The New Dimension performs a set inspired by the visual and performing art from this formative era of creativity.
Sure Happy It's Tuesday by Dan Yoder
Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt
Somewhere by Leonard Bernstein arr. Brubeck
Solstice by Steven Hopkins
Petite Fleur by Sidney Bechet
Strollin' by Horace Silver
Missing Tooth by Dan Yoder
There Is No Greater Love by Isham Jones
“Jazz combo featured on WPSU’s “Music from Penn State”
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (February 12, 2009) — Tune into WPSU-TV on Thursday for the start of another acclaimed season of “Music from Penn State.” The program features a variety of musical styles and “Dan Yoder and the New Dimension” kicks things off with an evening of “cool jazz” on Penn State Public Television. “Music from Penn State” airs at 9 p.m. Thursday and repeats at 7 p.m. Sunday on WPSU-TV.
The jazz combo is made up of Penn State faculty and graduate students, including Dan Yoder, director of Jazz Studies, on saxophone; Mac Himes on guitar; Adam Kurland at piano; Ron Lange on bass; and Charlie Heim on drums.
The “Music from Penn State” series, now entering its third season, showcases the musical talent of Penn State’s School of Music.”
Megalodon - Edible
The debut album from a Jazz/Fusion/Funk/Classical beast of a band.
Megalodon has been in gestation for years now, mostly through various groups I've been in with my good pal Greg Johnson. In the summer of 2009, the five members first convened: Greg Johnson, Saxophone; Scott Kruser, Guitar; Erek Kapusta, Keyboards; Michael Dougherty, Bass; Yours Truly, Drums. Armed with some fresh charts by Greg and Scott, we played our first show EVER at the Central PA Festival of the Arts in State College - on a sunny Friday afternoon at the Festival Shell. We performed around SC a few more times in the ensuing days, and then went our separate ways for a full year.
Our devotion to the prehistoric beast pulled us back together in the summer of 2010, but this time with an agenda: record an album, and get this thing going. In June, we did just that - spent a week rehearsing our faces off, and two days with Dave Villani in Altoona recording. The result is Edible, a record of epic proportions that we're quite proud of. We released it in October of 2010, and are currently hocking it at all of the finest retailers:
Big Band: The University of the Arts
A swingin' studio recording from the 2008 University of the Arts Big Band, featuring the music of Count Basie.
Deathsquad 5000
I recently revisited a really cool project I worked on a few months ago.
I had the pleasure of recording/mixing an EP for the State College based jazz/funk/face-rocking band Deathsquad 5000 in my basement, using the ol' laptop+some pretty microphones. There's some really cool stuff on this record, and the guys laid down some serious tracks (usually in just a few takes). Kudos to the guys in the band:
Mac Himes - Guitar
Erek Kapusta - Piano
Ben Stanley - Bass
Adam Wlotowsky - Drums