Lise Brown: Press

"Imagine a world where all dance music was one. There would be no delineation between old-time, jazz, contra, or salsa - all music for terpischore would be interchangeable with borrowed instrumentation, style, and rhythm.

Lise Brown must have had just that thought. She formed Big Bandemonium, a contradance band with a full horn section including trombone, trumpet and her own talents on sax and flute. Add to the mix veterans of the New England dance scene and you have a multidimensional dance band of the rarest order. One track typifies what is so exciting about this recording: the influences are quite evident but the integration of the brass with the traditional New England dance band is virtually seamless. Roll up the carpet and have a blast with Big Bandemonium."

"The dance medley ending with the title tune moves effortlessly through Irish music, jazz, and salsa, including a lovely flute solo from Brown. On other pieces the horns provide additional oomph along with imaginative counter melodies. Composed of veteran musicians with impressive credentials in jazz and Celtic, old-time and world music, Big Bandemonium is an impressive experiment that fearlessly breaks new musical ground."

"As you can hear on their excellent new album, "The Big Bang", a fuller, more modern sound is created that fuses the 19th and 20th centuries into something right in sync with the cut-and-paste 21st century. Many songs on the album are outstanding."

Lise Brown had a great idea when she put together the sound of a big band horn section with a top notch contra dance rhythm section and three expert fiddlers. The combination is dynamite. Just when you think what you've got here is a really good contra dance band, all of a sudden the horns come blasting in with a Latin dance rhythm, a smooth lick. or a swinging solo from the sax or trombone.