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Fat Cat Big Band
Fat Cat
Big Band
Embraces
Open
Perspective
SAMANTHA MERLEY
Jade Synstelien
After packing a couple of bags, guitarist Jade
Synstelien drove a 1979 Cadillac Sedan de
Ville cross-country from his home in New
Mexico to New Paltz, N.Y. He dropped off the
car and took a train to Manhattan, where he
arrived just months before Sept. 11, 2001.
Synstelien had come of age working as a guitar-for-hire
in a variety of bands, but shifted his
focus almost exclusively to jazz composition
with the goal of leading a big band.
Such a venture was a long shot for someone
completely self-taught. But Synstelien believed
his countless gigs served as a substitute for conservatory
training. “In that process I learned
how to do a lot of different writing,” Synstelien
said. “Every kind of formulation you can think
of, I worked out a learning experience with
these kids that I grew up with.”
The big band Synstelien envisioned would
reflect the entire tradition spanning the swing
era to the avant-garde. Looking beyond the
conventions of jazz, it also would draw from
the years he accompanied singers in reggae,
ska, funk and Latin bands. Synstelien assembled
the 10-piece Staring into the Sun Orchestra
that year at Smalls in Greenwich Village. In
2006 Synstelien added a bass trombone to the
lineup and the band began performing every
Sunday at the Fat Cat, another Greenwich
Village club. Synstelien renamed the band the
Fat Cat Big Band in tribute to its home base.
Inspired by Duke Ellington, Sun Ra and
Charles Mingus, among others, the band now
boasts a repertoire of more than 100 original
compositions and spotlights young musicians.
The compositions and arrangements draw
inspiration from everything Synstelien has ever
performed. “The Thing That We Play To As It
Goes By” features a reggae beat, while
“Meditations On The War For Whose Great
God Is The Most High You Are God” sounds
like a Jewish hora. But Synstelien’s compositions
typically reflect traditional influences:
“F*ck The Man (Please Vote),” for example,
evokes “A Night In Tunisia.”
“It’s not coming out of the typical mind-set
that people associate with big bands nowadays,”
said Sharel Cassity, the band’s alto player.
“A lot of people from our generation can
relate to it knowing nothing about jazz. It’s not
refined like someone from a college music program
would produce.”
The Fat Cat Big Band issued three albums
in 2009 on Luke Kaven’s Smalls Records
imprint: Face, Angels Praying For Freedom
and Meditations On The War For Whose Great
God Is The Most High You Are God. Synstelien
plans to release the band’s fourth album later
this year. The titles of Synstelien’s compositions
make light of spiritual and political convictions
originating from 1950s and 1960s
counterculture.
“I want to end suffering for all human
beings and save everybody from death like
every other musician,” Synstelien said.
“Hopefully, if they’re a musician that’s what
their plan is, because that’s the only thing to do
with music. Everything else is jive.”
Synstelien decided last fall it was time for
the band to take a break from the Fat Cat. The
band had become so closely identified with the
club that Synstelien had difficulty booking it
elsewhere in New York.
“I’m looking to just get on the road,” he
said. “To get out of the city and spread this
good music to the rest of the United States. I
really believe that as musicians and artists it’s
our job to get everybody listening and paying
attention and reading, because if not, everybody’s
just going to sit there playing with the
tech toys and not paying attention to the real
important shit.”
—Eric Fine