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From Wilmette to Jazz
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John and Michael Fatum grew up in Wilmette, making the annual excursion downtown to watch jazz legen...John and Michael Fatum grew up in Wilmette, making the annual excursion downtown to watch jazz legends perform at the Chicago Jazz Festival.
And barely three years out of high school, the 21-year-old twins found themselves performing on stage in Grant Park with the 15-piece big band they created.
“This was a huge honor. We never thought we’d be able to play at it,” said Michael Fatum, referring to the brothers’ appearance at the festival on Sept. 3. “It was always these jazz greats that we could sit and listen to.”
The fraternal twins separated after they graduated from New Trier High School in 2008 and went to separate New York colleges to study music.
But jazz kept the two together, and during their freshman year they organized a 15-piece big band, mostly with other east coast college jazz students. Over the past two summers, while other college kids have gone on vacation, the Fatum Brothers Jazz Orchestra has recorded an album of original music and played more than 90 concerts on both coasts.
The group’s afternoon set Sept. 3 ended just as a rainstorm swept into Grant Park.
“It just started to pour halfway through the last tune, but no one moved,” Michael Fatum said. “And then, afterwards, they gave us a standing ovation and wanted us to continue playing, but (organizers) had to shut down the festival. But that was a highlight for sure.”
Nic Meyer, New Trier’s jazz director, remembers the two when he was jazz director at Midwest Young Artists, a Highwood-based youth music instruction program. John, a drummer, and Michael, who plays trumpet, stood out from the other young musicians, Meyer said.
“It was pretty obvious,” he said. “They play with an overwhelming amount of joy.”
Certainly the two were dedicated to learning the technical elements of their instruments, he said.
“But a lot of our students do that,” Meyer said. “There’s a feel that goes deeper than an intellectual level.”
The Fatums have it, he said.
And on Thursday, as the Fatum brothers brought their ensemble to New Trier’s Gaffney Auditorium for a tune-up performance for students and faculty, Meyer marveled as his former students’ success.
Organizers of this year’s Chicago Jazz Festival are “making sure there’s strong young participation,” Meyer said. “That’s what’s going to keep the music alive. Especially if they can perform at the same venue as their idols and the people they admire.”
But that’s not what really stands out to Meyer, an accomplished saxophonist in his own right.
“What’s really amazing is that 21-year-olds can put together a big band,” Meyer said.
John Fatum is the artistic director for the orchestra.
That leaves the business end — booking gigs, managing the finances — to Michael Fatum.
“It’s a logistical nightmare and it’s really difficult financially,” Michael Fatum said, laughing.
When their big band isn’t together, both have other groups they focus on, performing a wide variety of music from rock to funk to soul.
But jazz is their passion.
John Fatum remembers being at a Luciana Souza performance in Chicago when he was younger.
“It just hit me — I could do this for the rest of my life,” he said.
Michael Fatum credits a Louis Armstrong video that his mother bought him when he was younger as fueling his interest in the trumped.
“From there I was hooked,” he said.
But not everyone is optimistic about their chances of succeeding in the music industry.
“People like to get dark about being a musician. But persistence prevails,” John Fatum said, adding that he believes two traits are most important: “work hard and sound good.”
The two started playing music at 4 years old, when they started taking piano lessons.
A few years later, in Wilmette School District 39’s program, they picked up the instruments they now play — drums and trumpet.
Between the Midwest Young Artists organization and the program at New Trier High School, the two said they got a head-start toward a musical career.
“It’s a real blessing,” Michael Fatum said. “New Trier has always been good to the arts. This high school knows how fundamental it can be in a young person’s life.”
After the Labor Day weekend, which also saw performances at Evanston’s Music Institute of Chicago and Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School in Harvey, the brothers set off back to college — for John Fatum at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and for Michael Fatum at New York University.
If there’s one goal beyond their impending graduations next spring, it’s simply to keep playing, John Fatum said.
“We want to play all over the world and just make people happy. That’s what we do best,” he said.
And while other musicians may come and go, the two brothers are planning to stick together.
“I think John and I will be leaders for a long time as far as organizing projects,” Michael Fatum said.
For more information on the group, visit fatumjazz.com.
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Whoop it up big band style with the Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra
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Feel free to whoop it up tonight at Mojo Kitchen - that's what the Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra re...Feel free to whoop it up tonight at Mojo Kitchen - that's what the Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra really wants.
They're bringing big band music to the blues bar, and some hooting and hollering is in order. It seems like a strange combination, but this 15-member orchestra isn't your great Uncle Jasper's big band, and the night isn't likely to be of the "Lawrence Welk Show" sort.
Owen Broder, a saxophonist from Jacksonville in the band, said they don't refrain from showing their enthusiasm on stage. He spoke to the Times-Union by phone this week while the band was on the road.
"One of the things that makes this band fun, for me, is it is clearly visible that the band is having a great time on stage. ... The band leaders will shout, 'Go, go, go!' and it gets the band pumped up. We encourage the audience to do the same," he said.
A big band these days is unusual enough, but a part of what really sets the Fatum Brothers' apart and adds to its allure is youthfulness; the members are mostly in their early 20s (one is 25). They came together under the leadership of the twin Fatum brothers, Michael and John, who recruited college-trained musicians from around the country, including prestigious schools such as the Juilliard and Eastman schools of music, New York University and the New England Conservatory.
Broder said he joined recently, embarking on his first summer tour just weeks ago, but the group started three years ago.
The orchestra plays original compositions written by band members, but also treats big band history with reverence, Broder said. They are performing several Duke Ellington pieces on this tour, and are able to "recreate the sound from the original big band era, even in the context of ultimately more contemporary music."
To further describe the band's nature, Broder passed the phone to his band leader and longtime friend John Fatum.
Even if people in the audience don't know the technical nuances of music, anyone can appreciate the energy and emotion the band brings to it, he said.
"We want to spread the joy of music to every audience we perform for, starting by having fun ourselves on stage and by creating a product we love and believe in, and just letting that be the first thing that comes to the audience. ... We're 'people people' playing music."
Sounds like Mojo Kitchen is in for a lively, interactive show. Tickets are $10.
For more on the Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra, go to fatumjazz.com.
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/music/2011-08-05/story/whoop-it-big-band-style-fatum-brothers-jazz-orchestra#ixzz1bwwmdGCo
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"Young Sacramento Composer's Work featured in CD"
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Twenty-year-old Sacramento composer Levi Saelua dreams big.
Duke Ellington and Count Basie big.
...Twenty-year-old Sacramento composer Levi Saelua dreams big.
Duke Ellington and Count Basie big.
"My ultimate goal is to run a large ensemble for which I write, conduct and, perhaps, play," said Saelua, a junior at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., whose work has created a buzz among musicians.
That buzz is not lost on the hotshot Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra, which has recorded all nine of his works for its debut CD, "Here To Say."
The orchestra is taking that music on a West Coast tour, including a stop in Sacramento on Friday at the 24th Street Theatre.
While most seasoned composers consider themselves lucky to have one of their works performed by a professional orchestra, Saelua had his first orchestral debut last year in Sacramento when he was 19 years old.
Local audiences might remember Saelua's music. His first orchestral work "Prelude in G Major" was performed by the Sacramento Philharmonic last year.
That work revealed a solid grasp of orchestration and a deft hand at using rhythms to make a jazzy musical point.
"Levi's work was surprisingly mature for an 19-year-old composer, especially considering he'd never written for orchestra," said Marc Feldman, executive director for the Sacramento Philharmonic.
Wherever his music is heard, it seems a spark of enthusiasm is ignited among musicians.
"I'm a huge fan," said percussionist John Fatum, co-founder, with twin brother Michael, of the Chicago-based Fatum Brothers' Orchestra.
That ensemble's 16 musicians have been culled by the Fatum brothers from some of the best college-level music programs nationwide.
John Fatum and Saelua are colleagues at the Eastman School. "His music is reflective of classical big band music like Count Basie's or Thad Jones," said Fatum. "And every time I hear it, it becomes more moving and meaningful."
Saelua also happens to be an accomplished saxophonist, and will perform on the baritone saxophone with the Fatum orchestra in Sacramento.
Fatum first encountered Saelua at an introductory jam session at Eastman.
"When I first heard him play he sounded so awesome, I assumed he was a jazz performance major," Fatum said. "I was so surprised when he told me he was a composition major."
Saelua makes no bones about the fact that he likes to write for large ensembles. His work certainly bloomed when performed by an orchestra. And the same applies to how his works play out with the Fatum orchestra, said Fatum.
But that's to be expected given that Saelua is a big fan of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. One of the nine works to be performed on the tour is the four-movement suite "And the Duke called him Swee'pea."
"I started writing it as a ballad," said Saelua. "At first, it sounded like a (Billy) Strayhorn tune. Then, I decided to expand it to a four-movement suite that follows sonata form."
Mining classical forms like the sonata comes way of Saelua's recent immersion in classical music at Eastman.
"I've gotten into Romantic-era composers like Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and some friends at Eastman have gotten me into Shostakovich," he said.
For Michael Fatum, Saelua's music is in keeping with the mission he and his brother set upon when starting Fatum.
"The most important thing for the band is that it connect with the audience," Michael Fatum said. "Often, people go to jazz concerts and the music goes way over their heads. But Levi writes from the heart. His music accomplishes that goal."
On Friday, Saelua's music will get a reading from this fresh-faced jazz ensemble. One of the charms of the orchestra is how it has used the Internet to generate buzz and raise money for the tour. So far, the orchestra has raised $5,386 for the six-city tour from online donations.
Although the temptation is to assume that Saelua comes from a musical family, the opposite is true. Saelua's early musical training was Taiko drumming lessons.
"One day, when I was 5, my mom took me and my three sisters to see Taiko Dan," said Saelua. The local drumming ensemble specializes in the use of taiko drums used in Westernlike drum set arrangements, where each player beats a different drum.
"The next week my mother informed us that we all were taking taiko lessons," he said.
Saelua participated in Taiko Don until he turned 15.
"It's helped my music career, because in taiko there's no reading of music; you learn everything by watching," he said. "So when I learned to read music I got to see what the rhythms looked like on paper. That's when I realized I had a different introduction into the concept of rhythm."
The unique approach served him well. In 2007, while Saelua was under the tutelage of Mike McMullen at Rio Americano High School, his career gained a serious nod: He won a DownBeat Magazine Award for his arrangement of the Spyro Gyra tune "Monsoon."
At Eastman, Saelua is indulging his fondness for big band writing, and is working on his first big band arrangement to feature a vocalist. And he's also working on a piece he's orchestrating for string, woodwind, brass and rhythm quartet.
"I feel that piece is the next step in my evolution as a composer and arranger," he said.
And as far as musical evolutions go, there is nothing small about it.
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FBJO to play benefit at CSU Tonight
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No two jazz solos are ever the same, says Michael Fatum, a trumpet player in The Fatum Brothers’ Jaz...No two jazz solos are ever the same, says Michael Fatum, a trumpet player in The Fatum Brothers’ Jazz Orchestra.
“The improvisation is something extremely unique compared to other styles (of music),” he said.
The orchestra will play in Columbus tonight to help Twin Cedars Youth and Family Services kick off a fundraising campaign for the new Dorothy Wells Knight Community Counseling Center. Knight was Fatum’s great aunt. Micheal and his twin brother, John (who plays drums in the orchestra), have visited Columbus before, but never performed here.
“It’s a huge thing for us,” Michael said. “It’s great to get to know more about Twin Cedars.”
The 15-piece jazz orchestra is comprised of college-age musicians from schools such as the Julliard School of Music and the New England Conservatory.
The musicians will play hits from familiar jazz and big band artists like Duke Ellington, as well as some original compositions.
“We have some very talented composers as well,” he said.
While the orchestra is composed of music students, Fatum said the age of their audience varies.
“It’s a total mix. We have older people who love hearing the music they grew up with. At the same time, there’s a lot of young people,” he said.
Though he plays the trumpet now, Fatum started out taking lessons in classical piano. He and his brother switched to jazz, he said, because it was cool.
“It was such a relief when we heard Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Ma Rainey,” he said. “That rhythm and the music. We thought ‘This is infinitely cooler.’”
Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served from 6:30 to 7:30 and the concert begins at 8 p.m. Dressy casual attire is requested. Tickets for the concert are $50 per person. Proceeds will go to the fundraising drive for the Dorothy Wells Knight Community Counseling center, which will offer counseling services to children who have been abused.
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Culture Lust Weekend; the Fatum Brothers
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Get “In The Mood” and “Sing, Sing, Sing” tonight at Dizzy’s because Chicago’s newest musical offspri...Get “In The Mood” and “Sing, Sing, Sing” tonight at Dizzy’s because Chicago’s newest musical offspring – hip, young jazz group The Fatum Brother’s Jazz Orchestra - is here. Led by twin brothers, this 15-person musical group is bringing Big Band back.
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Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra @ Nighttown
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This ain’t your average big band. No sir. No ma’am… Fatum Brothers’ Jazz Orchestra consists of two t...This ain’t your average big band. No sir. No ma’am… Fatum Brothers’ Jazz Orchestra consists of two twin brothers leading a youthful all-star big band on a national tour. This band is huge, made up of members from all over the country. Hear ‘em @ Nighttown on Mon 7/25/11.
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New Trier Alumni Bring the Jazz Back Home
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Nearing the end of a month long tour that will culminate this weekend at the Chicago Jazz Festival, ...Nearing the end of a month long tour that will culminate this weekend at the Chicago Jazz Festival, the ??Fatum Brothers Jazz ?Orchestra played for a smaller yet no less significant audience: students from New Trier High School (NTHS).
The big band, which entails saxophones, brass and a rhythm section, traveled across the country to take the Gaffney Auditorium stage on Thursday afternoon, where they played original music and favorites by jazz forefather Duke Ellington.
"How did you do that?" one student, microphone in hand, asked the orchestra from his seat in the stands.
"A lot of these tunes were played on the road for three weeks," said John Fatum, a drummer and 2008 NTHS graduate. "If the form is messed up, we have to stop and get back on board. Each person has to be in rhythm."
Orchestra members shouted as the bass lines rolled, drums rumbled and fingers jived up the piano keys like a tap dancer with unstoppable flow.
For the Fatum brothers, their love of music started as kids and really picked up steam in high school.
"I know you all have a lot of passion," said Michael Fatum, trumpeter and also a 2008 NTHS graduate. "And if you're from New Trier, you can do anything."
The two things that matter most in the orchestra, the young trumpeter said, are hard work and the level of musicianship his bandmates bring. The rest relies on passion, learning and having fun.
"I remember sitting in Jazz I and thinking about jazz," he said, "and thinking about that girl in Spanish class. We were all standing in your shoes."
Orchestra members are currently enrolled in conservatory programs throughout the U.S., including the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, New York University, the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard School of Music, University of Illinois and New England Conservatory.
You can catch the Fatum Brothers Jazz Orchestra Saturday at the Chicago Jazz Festival in Grant Park, from 2:15 p.m to 2:55 p.m.
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