Megabopolis
Demo Sound Clips
Well-crafted arrangements and tight ensemble work produce a rich “mini-big band” sound from this high-energy jazz sextet’s three-horn front line. Megabopolis performs the unique, melodic originals of award-winning composer and OA2 recording artist Nelda Swiggett as well as her arrangements of songs by current jazz artists such as Brad Meldau, Wynton Marsalis, Michel Camilo, and Justin Kauflin. Megabopolis features some of Seattle’s finest jazz musicians, passionate about their craft, who have collectively performed at many top clubs and festivals throughout the Northwest and beyond, including the Earshot Jazz Festival, the Port Townsend Jazz Festival, Bumbershoot, Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., to name a few.
It was a wonderful show… Everyone in the audience was “bopping.”
— Kellie Whitlock, Seattle Jazz Vespers
Thank you and your band for the great concert last night. A very special night for everyone. You killed it!!
— Michael Olson, Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Black Box concert series, Olympia
About the Musicians
Nelda Swiggett (bandleader, piano, vocal) formed her first band, the Room to Move sextet, in 1990. Like Megabopolis, Room to Move featured a three-horn frontline with trumpet, tenor, and trombone. Nelda arranged her original compositions for Room to Move, and the sextet performed at many top venues and festivals throughout the Northwest, including Bumbershoot, a KPLU-FM Summer Jazz Cruise, Jazz Alley, and the Bellevue Jazz Festival, to name a few. Room to Move eventually disbanded, but Nelda continued writing for horns — her original big band arrangements have been performed by Seattle’s nationally recognized Garfield High School Jazz Band and the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra (SWOJO). Her original big band composition, “Cat Dreams,” won SWOJO’s 2015 international Jazz Composition Contest for Women Composers, and was debuted in the Earshot Jazz Festival. Megabopolis is an exciting return to her “mini big band” roots. MORE ABOUT NELDA.
Michael Van Bebber (trumpet) was raised in Seattle, and graduated from the University of Washington before going on to earn two M.A. degrees in classical trumpet and composition at Truman State University, and a D.M.A. in Jazz Studies from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He performed for many years as a member of the renowned Eastman Jazz Ensemble, and has shared the stage with many notable jazz artists including Lee Konitz, John Pizzarelli, the Woody Herman Band, Walt Weiskopf, Chuck Mangione, Jeff Beal, Walter White, John Fedchock, Pat LaBarbara, Marvin Stamm, and Bill Dobbins. He has also appeared several times at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, in both quintet and big band settings. As a composer, he has earned several prestigious awards in composition, including the 2004 MACRO Composition/Theory Award, the 2005 CBDNA Wind Ensemble National Composition Competition, the 2005 College Music Society’s International Composition Competition.
Travis Ranney (tenor saxophone) has been performing and touring since 1990 and has played with many jazz greats as well as with top local bands. Some recent work includes John Pizzarelli, Doc Severinsen, the Ramsay/Kleeb Orchestra with Pete Christlieb and the Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, and he recently toured in the Northwest region with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (under the direction of Paul Ellington). He has also been featured many times in the Port Townsend Jazz Festival Big Band.
Clif Swiggett (trombone) played lead trombone as a teenager in the McDonald’s Tri-State Jazz Ensemble backing up Dizzy Gillespie and appearing at Carnegie Hall, Newport Jazz, Kool Jazz Festival and The Merv Griffin TV Show. During college Clif was the Student Director of the Princeton University Jazz Ensemble, played with the Clem DeRosa All-Star Big Band, and toured with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Since moving to Seattle in 1985, he’s played with The Room To Move Sextet, Megabopolis, Latin bands Cambalache and Caribbean Roots, and many of the city’s great big bands. Clif graduated with honors from Princeton University with a B.S. degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering with minors in music and religion. In 2013, Clif co-founded The Melodic Progression Institute with world renowned vibraphonist Stefon Harris. This exciting collaboration led to the development of their online learning app, The Harmony Cloud™.
Max Wood (drums) is one of Seattle’s most in-demand and versatile drummers, performing with artists such as Dawn Clement, Casey MacGill, Sumi Tonooka, Nelda Swiggett, Jacqueline Tabor, The Sam Boshnack Quintet, and Nearly Dan. Fifteen years of frequent engagements as a performing and recording artist have taken him all over the world, including a tour with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Max mostly focuses on the musical realm of jazz, but also has done musical theater, rock and orchestral performance. Max holds a BM in Percussion Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Michael Glynn (bass) began performing professionally at the age of 16. While living in the Pacific Northwest, New Mexico, and the Bay Area he has performed with such jazz luminaries as Eric Alexander, Peter Bernstein, Seamus Blake, Conte Candoli, Eddie Daniels, Dave Grusin, Louis Hayes, Geoffrey Keezer, Don Lanphere, Mark Levine, Harold Mabern, Lewis Nash, William Parker, Aaron Parks, Bud Shank, Bobby Shew, Gary Smulyan, and Terell Stafford. In addition to his jazz work, Michael has performed in a variety of other genres, including classical concerts with the New Mexico Philharmonic, the New Mexico Symphony, Opera Southwest, and Canticum Novum Santa Fe, calypso with Trinidadian steel drum legend Ray Holman, and Arab/European music with Iraqi-American oud virtuoso Rahim Al Haj.