Jack Furlong
of Pennington, NJ

Description

Recording artist, composer, and educator, Jack Furlong is known for his skill and artistry as a baritone saxophonist, composer, arranger, and woodwind doubler. Portrayed as “a messenger for jazz past and jazz still to come,” Jack’s arrangements and composi-tions reflect a varied and broad spectrum of standards and contemporary music. Producing originals with a unique retro flavor in addition to classic charts, he incorp-orates programmatic music that adds a twist he describes as “taking a jazz field trip to your childhood.”

Creating music with a cool, melodic phrasing and simple approach, his music styling is a hybrid of traditional jazz heavily influenced by legends such as Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Count Basie, and John Coltrane, but personalized for today’s jazz scene. An accomplished performer, at times he performs in pit orchestras often playing three to five instruments at a time; leads “The “Jack Furlong Quartet;” and has worked with and shared the stage with many notable greats such as Mulgrew Miller, Ken Brader, Jim McNeely, Dave Demsey and Rich DeRosa.  Performing throughout the upper East Coast, Jack delights his audiences with wit and mastery at gigs and on his CD recordings, “A Jazzebration!” and “Bunnies in Limbo.”

Although music was a prominent part of his early education in Hopewell, NJ where he grew up, his interest didn’t peak until later in life. Picking up the violin as his first musical instrument in the second grade, he switched to saxophone at the age of 10 when his mom rented him an alto saxophone from a local music shop. Sticking with music paid off when, at 17, he discovered the baritone saxophone, his true passion.

The beginning of his professional career coincided with the beginning of his jazz studies at Lafayette College, where he earned a B.A. in Music. Performing in the Lafayette College Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Combo and other musical ensembles, Jack honed his chops and began composing for big bands and small ensembles. It was during this time that Jack started gravitating towards the programmatic music of films, television, video games and other media.
Today this fascination plays a big role as he integrates jazz into this style of music creating the contemporary sound of solos and original compositions.  His inspiration for these types of pieces primarily comes from “James Bond” music composers John Barry, David Arnold, Monty Norman and Bill Conti, as well as video game music composer Koji Kondo. In fact, it was Koji Kondo, best known for his compositions for the games “Super Mario Bros.,” that inspired Jack’s arrangement for acceptance into William Patterson University, where he recently received his Masters in Music concentrating on jazz composition and arranging.

Outside of performing, recording, and composing, Jack explores all music has to offer by helping others reach their musical potential through teaching at Lafayette College as the Assistant Director to the college Jazz Ensemble, the Director of the Pep Band, and as the Music Director for the Newman Association for Catholics on campus. He also gives back to the community as a baseball umpire and coach.

Currently, in addition to composing, arranging, and performing, Jack plans to release his third CD recording, “And That Happened” in February, 2011.