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After Cancer and COVID, Leigh Pilzer is Beatin' the Odds Washington, DC native Leigh Pilzer is a baritone saxophone specialist, composer, arranger, and educator. Her performance resume includes appearances with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, The DIVA Jazz Orchestra, the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore’s Soulful Symphony, and more. She is also a bandleader in her own right, leading the Leigh Pilzer Startet, her all-star quartet/quintet; organ group Leigh Pilzer’s Low Standards; and her latest project, Leigh Pilzer’s Seven Pointed Star. She also co-leads PALS, a duo with bassist Amy Shook and JLQ, the Jen Krupa-Leigh Pilzer Quintet. Pilzer has presented her groups to enthusiastic audience response at top venues including Blues Alley, Keystone Korner, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, and the Atlas Performing Arts Center, to name a few. Pilzer is an in-demand composer and arranger whose music is performed by jazz ensembles and brass quintets throughout the country, as well as by the DC-area premier military jazz ensembles. She has contributed a number of works to the libraries of SJMO, DIVA, and BCJO, including “East Coast Andy, ” the opening track on DIVA’s critically acclaimed 25th Anniversary Project. Other notable writing credits include orchestrations for the Broadway production of Maurice Hines Tappin Thru Life and horn section arrangements for recordings by Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy. Pilzer is a Brava Jazz Publishing artist, and commissions include an arrangement for the University of Maryland Jazz Ensemble’s inaugural recording. Her current ongoing project is creating a library of compositions and arrangements for her septet, Leigh Pilzer’s Seven Pointed Star. The group’s debut recording, released in March, 2024, includes eight of Pilzer’s original compositions and one by long-time colleague, bassist Amy Shook, all exquisitely arranged by Pilzer for trumpet, alto, trombone, bari/bass clarinet, piano, bass, and drums. As an educator, Pilzer has served on the faculties of University of Maryland, George Mason University, and Towson University. Her teaching responsibilities have included Jazz Theory, Jazz Arranging, Jazz History, Fundamentals of Rock, Blues, and Jazz, and Chamber Jazz Ensemble. She has mentored for Strathmore’s Institute for Artistic Development Artist in Residence (AIR) program and for the North American Saxophone Alliance’s Committee for Gender Equality (CGE), and she strives to serve as a mentor and role model for all her students. In addition to her classroom teaching, Pilzer is an engaging speaker who has presented at the Jazz Education Network conference; “Beyond the Notes, ” George Mason University’s Musicology lecture series; and for numerous educational initiatives including the Washington Women in Jazz Festival, University of Maryland Jazz Studies Department, the Baltimore Jazz Education Project, NASA’s CGE, and Strathmore’s AIR program. In recognition for Pilzer’s work as a presenter, performer, educator, bandleader, and presenter, in 2023 the Capital Hill Jazz Foundation presented her with the D.C. Jazz Leaders in Service Award. Pilzer holds a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition and Arranging from Berklee College of Music. Her desire to improve her instrumental skills led her to earn not one, but two master’s degrees from the University of Maryland: Jazz Studies and Saxophone Performance. Her affinity for research and her enjoyment of learning led her to enroll at a doctoral program in music theory at the Catholic University of America but upon the sudden and tragic passing of Steven G. Strunk, her mentor and faculty advisor, for whom she named her debut CD Strunkin’, she transferred to George Mason University as a Presidential Scholar. In 2020 Pilzer earned the Dewberry School of Music Academic Achievement Award and graduated with a doctorate in Saxophone Performance with Jazz Emphasis. “…a fantastic horn player, she brings so much life to the instrument.” -Sunny Sumter, President and CEO, DC Jazz Festival In Beatin’ the Odds, her first release for Strange Woman Records, Leigh Pilzer presents music informed by experiences of significance to her: having had cancer in 2017 and living through the COVID pandemic. All but one of the pieces (the title track, “Beatin’ the Odds, ” composed by bassist Amy Shook) were written by Pilzer. The cancer “suite” is presented first, followed by the set of COVID tracks. Pilzer has assembled two supergroups of stellar talent from the DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia areas for this sophomore outing as a bandleader, and she has added trumpet and alto saxophone to the quintet featured on her first recording: baritone saxophone, trombone, piano, bass, and drums. She further expands the galaxy of sonic color in the septet by adding percussion, bass clarinet, and bass saxophone on several tracks. Each musician gets their moment to shine within the exquisitely crafted arrangements, but the compositions and arrangements themselves stand front and center as well, highlighting Pilzer’s considerable expertise as a writer. The music ranges from straight ahead and swinging to more modern and contemplative, carrying you along on Pilzer’s personal and musical journey. Pilzer explains, “the music on this recording was written between September 2017 and October 2023, a period that included life-changing events both personal (a cancer diagnosis) and universal (the COVID pandemic). The tunes reflect aspects of, or feelings generated by these events. While all the music on this recording is very personal, the cancer portion is by far more difficult to write about. Until recently I spoke about having had cancer very little, for fear that if someone knew about it they would cease to view me as myself, but rather as generic “Cancer Patient.” But the late Maryam “SkaterMom” Balbed led me to realize that it is only by speaking openly about cancer that we can hope to normalize it and remove stigmas and misconceptions so that the public, friends, families, and cancer patients themselves understand that statistics aren’t people and cancer isn’t an automatic death sentence.” Students of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn will recognize the first track, “SKCC, ” as a titular, melodic, and harmonic homage to Strayhorn’s composition “Upper Manhattan Medical Group” (often referred to as “UMMG”). In Pilzer’s case, the initials stand for Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, where she was diagnosed, operated on, and treated. Her surgeon was Jeffrey Yen Lin, MD. Dr. “In the course of my initial meeting with him he took me from ‘it could be benign, borderline, or malignant’ to ‘it’s almost certainly malignant’ so clearly and yet so gently the news was bearable. In “Lin” I’ve tried to capture that soft-spoken quality, combined with a sense of the drama of a cancer diagnosis, ” explains Pilzer. “Waterkress” is named for her oncologist, Bruce Kressel, MD. It may seem an oddly jaunty piece for a song about cancer treatment, but Dr. Kressel has an engaging grin and “I always have the impression he’s someone who might get up to mischief now and again. I felt that a light-hearted tune fit with his air of optimistic realism (or is it realistic optimism?).” Anyone who’s ever had a Benadryl drip will recognize the floating sensation of “The Platinum Taxi.” It’s written in a regular meter but the beats are distributed unevenly over a repeated bass line, giving a listener a sense of the disorientation that comes along with the drip. Pilzer describes, “the title comes from my medications, carboplatin and Taxotere.” “Beatin’ the Odds” was written for Pilzer by the force of nature that is Amy Shook. When she learned of Pilzer’s situation she immediately snapped into action and composed a piece that, so far, has turned out to be remarkably prescient. At the time of Pilzer’s diagnosis statistics placed her odds of surviving five years at just thirty percent. “As I write this, I am more than six years cancer-free, ” declares Pilzer. As COVID cases started rising in late 2019 and news of the virus’s severity began to spread, the world got a glimpse of what it’s to live with the uncertainly of someone who’s had cancer, the undercurrent of questions running through one’s mind: will I get it (again)? how bad will it be? will there be a cure? will I die? As it happened, the onset of the COVID lockdown in 2020 coincided with the culmination of five years of work towards a doctoral degree. Pilzer was happy to have fulfilled her long-held dream but after five years of full-time study she felt untethered without a class structure to follow. She decided to take a class from Berklee College of Music, taught online by Eric Gould. Pilzer credits Gould with helping open her ears and mind to new ways of approaching composition, remarking that “the pieces of the COVID set are all outgrowths of sketches I wrote for Eric’s class.” “And Then It Stopped” refers to the pandemic and lockdown in general and to March 12, 2020 specifically. That’s when Pilzer’s email pinged and phone rang and messages chimed all day with cancellations of all the upcoming performances she had been looking forward to. The idea of the sudden stoppage is reflected in the tune’s funky broken bass line at the beginning and the lessening of intensity at the end of the melody. Pilzer expands, “Unlike those in the medical profession, first responders, and others I was able to spend 2020 at home. I realize what a luxury and privilege that was. For me 2020 and much of 2021 seemed to disappear in a blur of concerns both mundane and meaningful: what day is it? is there any toilet paper at the store? how many more have died? I don’t mean to sound flippant. But the horror and the sameness and the rising numbers blended into a miasma, represented in “Last Year, Lost Year” by the floating harmonies and intertwining melody lines.” “How Much Longer” is both a question of how much longer would the pandemic continue to affect our lives and a statement about how much longer the infections, hospitalizations, and restrictions had gone on than anyone anticipated. The piece fades in with percussion, as if from afar, and fades out at the end, leaving the question unanswered. The opening four-note figure of the last composition inspired the title “Where Will We Go?” The tune has a driving rhythmic feel, propelling us into the next chapter, whatever it will be. TRACKS, TIMES, COMPOSER: 1. SKCC (5:02) 2. Lin (6:28) 3. Waterkress (5:41) 4. The Platinum Taxi (6:32) 5. Beatin’ the Odds (4:34) comp. Amy Shook, arr. Leigh Pilzer 6. And Then It Stopped (6:00) 7. Last Year, Lost Year (6:58) 8. How Much Longer (5:36) 9. Where Will We Go? (3:41) All titles composed and arranged by Leigh Pilzer (ASCAP) except as noted PLAYERS, INSTRUMENT: Leigh Pilzer, baritone and bass saxophones, bass clarinet Ally Hany Albrecht, trumpet (tracks 1–5) Mercedes Beckman, alto saxophone (tracks 1–5) Jen Krupa, trombone (tracks 1–5) Amy K Bormet, piano (tracks 1–5) Sherrie Maricle, drums (tracks 1–5) Kenny Rittenhouse, trumpet (tracks 6–9) Tim Green, alto saxophone (tracks 6–9) Joe Jackson, trombone (tracks 6–9) Allyn Johnson, piano (tracks 6–9) Frank Russo, drums (tracks 6–9) Greg Holloway, percussion (track 8) Amy Shook, bass PRODUCTION CREDITS All tracks recorded at Tonal Park, Takoma Park, MD Charlie Pilzer, engineer Tracks 1–5 recorded October 15, 2023 Tracks 6–9 recorded August 21, 2023 Leigh Pilzer and Charlie Pilzer, producers Charlie Pilzer, mixing Randy LeRoy, mastering |
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