Upstart ensemble brings big band sound to small stage
VCU’s grad big band fits on Camel’s stage — barely.
Trumpeter Steven Cunningham in performance Tuesday night with Brunswick, a 12-piece big band comprised of current and former VCU Music majors.
Samantha Foster
Staff Writer
The name of 12-piece modern jazz ensemble Brunswick is a new development. Up until their showing at The Camel this past Tuesday night, they were the John Hulley Large Ensemble, a name adopted from an official calendar’s event listing for the then-unnamed group.
John Hulley, bandleader and classical guitar performance graduate from VCU, christened the band “Brunswick” after his hometown of Brunswick, Maine – but insisted that the ensemble has “never been about the name.”
Hulley assembled his group – whose set on Tuesday ranged from softer jazz tunes to Hulley’s own arrangement of Daft Punk – from brass and rhythm players from VCU Music after he graduated from the department.
“I graduated and was working normal jobs that someone with a college degree would work, like in sandwich shops,” Hulley said. “I realized that I had to do music by myself. … School was not forcing me.”
Brunswick started practicing together at the end of the summer, using VCU rehearsal space. Later, due to scheduling conflicts, they relocated to Hulley’s basement.
“We stopped feeling like VCU kids at that point,” Hulley said. “You don’t do this outside of a university class.”
Both Hulley and trumpeter Steven Cunningham, also a 2011 VCU Music graduate, compose songs for Brunswick.
“The tunes that I write are what I was going through that day,” Cunningham said.
“I think that there is a ratio of how much you love playing music to how much you’re paid,” Hulley said. “At this time in our lives, people are willing to work for very little money. … It was time to do this opportunity.”
At their Tuesday night show – the second time that they had ever performed live – it was clear that all 12 members felt right at home in the ensemble.
Band members, crammed on The Camel’s small stage, shuffled and folded around each other mid-song for solos, swayed in unison to the beat, and kept their audience of about 50 enraptured throughout.
“Goddamn, there was a lot of people,” Hulley said after the show. “I was surprised at how packed it was. I mean, there were people sitting on the floor.”
Brunswick is hoping to have more shows in the future, although they are currently still looking for a venue.
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Photos by Amber-Lynn Taber
