UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, one of the most celebrated ensembles in contemporary jazz, will make its second appearance at Penn State to perform works selected from its first decade of innovative big band music. The concert, presented by the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in Eisenhower Auditorium.
“It’s maximalist music of impressive complexity and immense entertainment value, in your face and then in your head,” wrote a reviewer for The Village Voice. A Newsweek writer suggested that “for a wholly original take on big band’s past, present and future, look to Darcy James Argue.”
The Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based composer and bandleader made headlines with the release of Secret Society’s “Infernal Machines” (2009), which along with “Brooklyn Babylon” (2013) and “Real Enemies” (2016) was nominated for a Grammy Award.
A New York Times critic praised the most recent album as “wildly discursive, twitchily allusive, a work of furious ambition … deeply in tune with our present moment.” A London Jazz News writer called the release “a mind-blowing example of truly great, era-defining jazz composition, and a contender for album of the year.”