Jazz at Princeton presents: Creative Large Ensemble Fall Concert

Darcy James Argue, “one of the top big band composers of our time”(Stereophile), is best known for Secret Society, an 18-piece group “renowned in the jazz world” (New York Times). Argue brings an outwardly anachronistic ensemble into the 21st century through his “ability to combine his love of jazz’s past with more contemporary sonics” and is celebrated as “a syncretic creator who avoids obvious imitation” (Pitchfork). Acclaimed as an “innovative composer, arranger, and big band leader” by The New Yorker, Argue’s accolades include multiple GRAMMY nominations and a Latin GRAMMY Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, and countless commissions and fellowships.

Dynamic Maximum Tension, Argue’s latest album with Secret Society and his label debut on Nonesuch Records, is named after the three words that inventor and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller combined to form his personal brand: “Dymaxion” — a term reflecting Bucky’s desire to get the most out of his materials, the utopian vision of his designs, and his quest to improve the pattern of daily life. The album has been called “his best to date — a work of stunning versatility and complexity, but thoroughly accessible” by Tracking Angle, and “an extraordinary album: one of the best of the year” by the Winnipeg Free Press. Dynamic Maximum Tension earned Argue his fourth consecutive GRAMMY nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

Argue’s affinity for blurring genres and deftly weaving sociopolitical ideas into ambitious, culturally resonant work is exemplified in the “stunningly original” (Wall Street Journal) song cycle Ogresse, a collaboration with GRAMMY-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, and in the multimedia performance Real Enemies, a “breathtaking” (JazzNu) production co-created with writer-director Isaac Butler and filmmaker Peter Nigrini that premiered in 2015 at the BAM Next Wave Festival.

Argue has been named Composer and Arranger of the Year, and Secret Society named Big Band of the Year, by the DownBeat International Critics Poll. He has been commissioned by the MAP Fund, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Newport Festival Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, BAM, and the Jazz Gallery, as well as ensembles including the Danish Radio Big Band, the Canadian National Jazz Orchestra, NYO Jazz, the Hard Rubber Orchestra, the West Point Jazz Knights, and the Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New Music USA, Composers Now, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Canada Council for the Arts, and MacDowell.