Dennis Mackrel

Drummer Dennis Mackrel has always been highly regarded by working musicians, yet undervalued by the jazz community as a whole. Mackrel is probably best known as the drummer hand-picked by Mel Lewis in 1990 to take over duties in the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra when Lewis was unable to continue. This was not actually the first time he held an important chair in a high-profile band; in 1983, at 21 years of age, Mackrel joined the Count Basie Orchestra, a position which he held until 1987. Mackrel has spent time recording and traveling with many large and small orchestras, including the Very Big Carla Bley Band, Slide Hampton & the Jazz Masters, the Carnegie Hall Classic Jazz Orchestra, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, Grover Mitchell & His Orchestra, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and the American Jazz Orchestra. In 1994, Mackrel appeared on Maria Schneider's Grammy Award-winning recording Evanescence. ~ Dan Cross