Composer/Bandleader Darcy James Argue Interviewed at AAJ

Influenced by some of the best composers and arrangers around, composer/bandleader Darcy James Argue and his group, The Secret Society, are fast becoming not-so-secret. He's garnered critical praise from just about everyone who has heard the band. Like Maria Schneider, Argue does not play his instrument (piano), but leads the band with all-original music that has influences not only from jazz, but rock, alternative and any music that he feels has something to draw from.

His isn't a band playing old charts or stuck in neo-bop formats. Argue is adamant about drawing on varied sources to bring the music that is inside him to the world.

Writing and arranging personal, thought-provoking music is hard enough. But toss into the mix the financial problems of having a big band in these times that are not only financially bleak, but resistant to what they might feel “big band music" is. And add to that the general malaise in the music industry, in terms of how many gigs are out there, how CD sales are declining, how recoding and distributing music has gone topsy turvy with the decline of major labels and the Brave New World of the Internet.

Argue remains undeterred, as veteran AAJ Contributor RJ DeLuke discovered when he spoke with Argue about the challenges of maintaining a large ensemble, and The Secret Society's first “hard cd" recording, Infernal Machines, to be released in May, 2009.

Check out Darcy James Argue: His Secret Society at AAJ today!