Either/Orchestra makes music without borders

The Either/Orchestra and Mahmoud Ahmed perform at the Glastonbury Festival in 2008. More than a quarter of a century ago, Russ Gershon set out to help keep alive the big-band music style that had been dying in the United States since the late 1940s. It was a period marked by big brassy sounds popularized by the likes of Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. But Gershon also wanted something different. He sought to organize a group of musicians who could improvise freely—something he says traditional big-band musicians were unable to do. The group he created, which he describes as "bigger than a small band and smaller than a big band," is aptly named the Either/Orchestra. "It's almost like a play, an opera," Gershon says.
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