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| Big Phat Band announce a creative fundraiser As their album, "The Phat Pack, " climbs the jazz charts and draws critical acclaim from the likes of Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band and their record company, immergent, announce a creative and atypical fundraiser to benefit high school band departments. The Big Phat Phundraiser will launch this fall and run through the end of the year, giving school music programs the profits from Big Phat Band album sales, while also offering bonus prizes to students and departments who generate the most money. "We in the Big Phat Band are strongly committed to supporting music education, " said bandleader Gordon Goodwin. "We believe that the efforts of band directors today have a significant effect on the survival of jazz, and all music of content, in the future." John Trickett, Chairman and CEO of immergent, said, "I learned music because my high school had enough money to lend me a trombone. In the days of declining funds for school programs we want to do all that we can to support music where it counts and help build the future." The Big Phat Phundraiser generates money for high school band departments through album sales from the Big Phat Band catalogue, which includes their new album as well as the soundtrack to the upcoming Warner Home Video DVD "Bah Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas." immergent will offer the DVDs and DualDiscs at a deeply discounted price to the schools, so students can sell them at market value and retain the profit. In addition, The Big Phat Phundraiser will donate $5, 000, $2, 500 and $1, 000 to the band programs of the top three schools with the most sales per band student. As an added bonus, throughout each week of the Phundraiser, the top-selling school will be awarded an autographed Big Phat Band song chart and a complete set of the acclaimed Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band Play Along Series. Individual students will also be awarded prizes such as Big Phat Band promotional items, gift cards to music stores, UMDs loaded with Big Phat Music, iPods, Xboxes and even a PlayStation 3. Earlier this year, The Big Phat Band released "The Phat Pack" on immergent, a critically acclaimed new album that is now in its twelfth week on the Billboard magazine Jazz chart. The Wall Street Journal declared "his jazz band is a big phat hit on the high school circuit" while "Goodwin has rock star status with high school jazz kids." The paper goes on to attribute Goodwin's popularity to a dramatic rise in the number of bands on campuses around the country, noting, "Nowadays, the big band action is not in the ballrooms, but in the classrooms. About 15, 000 big-band jazz ensembles are up and playing in American high school and colleges." Time magazine concurs, saying, "Amazingly, it works for high school and college kids who, if they have ever heard of the swing era, probably think it occurred between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. Half of the Phat Band's live appearances are at schools and colleges." Goodwin also won a Grammy Award for his musical work on the animated feature "The Incredibles, " and orchestrated the score for this summer's most talked-about film, "Snakes on a Plane." His work will also be heard in the upcoming films "The Guardian, " starring Kevin Costner, and "Flyboys." He and the Big Phat Band are currently recording the score for the animated holiday film "Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas" from Warner Home Video, due out on DVD this fall. The Big Phat Phundraiser will take place from October 30, 2006, through December 3, 2006. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |