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Welcome to the website of saxophonist, pianist, bandleader, educator, radio host, and author Loren Schoenberg.

Coming November 2025, the New Album from Turtle Bay Records

So Many Memories

Some four decades after his original ensemble, the Loren Schoenberg Big Band, recorded the first of five albums, and 40 years after he began overseeing the Benny Goodman Archives at Yale University, the multi-faceted, two-time Grammy winning musician, bandleader, jazz scholar and longtime Juilliard jazz history professor combines the many musical loves of his life on SO MANY MEMORIES, the debut album for Turtle Bay Records by LOREN SCHOENBERG AND HIS JAZZ ORCHESTRA.

The compelling 16-track collection features previously unheard arrangements from 1936-39 by swing era composer/arranger Eddie Sauter created for bandleader and early jazz vibraphone great Red Norvo and his wife, singer Mildred Bailey, known as “Mr. and Mrs. Swing.” The repertoire is performed by a 15-piece ensemble featuring Schoenberg on piano and Juilliard-affiliated musicians (students and alumni) including vocalist KATE KORTUM, in addition to renowned vibraphonist WARREN WOLF (a prolific recording artist and longtime member of the SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE) playing the xylophone parts originally arranged for Norvo. Schoenberg is proud of the fact that Sauter’s son Greg Sauter, now in his 80s, lived to hear this album and is quite thrilled about it – and the opportunity it offers the world to hear his father’s long undiscovered arrangements.         

  • Mr. Schoenberg, a tenor saxophonist/pianist, has played and recorded with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Heath, Eddie Durham, Marian McPartland, Clark Terry, John Lewis, Christian McBride, Buck Clayton, and was musical director for Bobby Short from 1997-2005. As a historian, educator, and Senior Scholar and former executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Schoenberg’s work has been crucial in preserving and promoting the history of jazz, particularly the big band and swing eras. Having played early in his career with alumni of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands, he formed his own big band in 1980, which in 1985 became the last Benny Goodman orchestra. In addition to his two decades plus at Juilliard, Schoenberg has taught at Manhattan School of Music and the New School and lectured everywhere from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Stanford University to the White House. Schoenberg has also conducted the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as well as the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and the WDR Jazz Orchestra in Koln, Germany. He has also received two Grammy awards for Best Album Notes.  

    In early 2024, Schoenberg met Turtle Bay owner Scott Asen, who asked if he had any projects in mind. Schoenberg suggested “a big band record of esoteric material” – and Asen approved the idea. A major champion of the Sauter canon, Schoenberg had performed and recorded Sauter’s work many times throughout his career – including on his own big band albums in the 80’s and 90s. He knew the perfect group to work with for this repertoire – starting with the group of Juilliard students he led for several years at Dizzy’s Jazz Club as part of the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival.

    With the exception of Warren Wolf and Juilliard alums, saxophonist JULIAN LEE and trumpeters JOE BOGA and ANTHONY HERVEY, Loren Schoenberg and His Jazz Orchestra comprises musicians in their early 20’s who, were at the time of this recording, students at the school. These include trumpeter SUMMER CAMARGO, trombonists ANDRE PERLMAN and NICK MESLER, saxophonists ADAM STEIN (who also plays splendid clarinet throughout), LANGSTON HUGHES II and DANIEL COHEN, guitarist JAMES ZITO, bassist JOHN MURRAY, drummer MATT LEE and featured vocalist Kate Kortum, who sings lead on all but four of the pieces.

    Recorded in a Juilliard band rehearsal room, SO MANY MEMORIES’ dynamic repertoire begins with soulful, spirited renderings of Duke Ellington’s “Azure” (which introduces us to Wolf’s mesmerizing xylophone skills) and the Gershwins’ “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” featuring Kortum, before the sensual romance kicks in on “You Go To My Head.” After a peppy romp through the full instrumental “I Know That You Know” (which has been recorded by Doris Day, Glenn Miller, Errol Garner and Oscar Peterson), Kortum’s pure, sensual voice regales us anew on Tommy Dorsey’s easy swinging heartbreaker “Music, Maestro Please,” the charming, torchy ballad “September in the Rain” (originally written for the 1935 film Stars Over Broadway) and the dreamy, nostalgic title track “So Many Memories,” first performed by Benny Goodman and his orchestra with singer Martha Tilton in 1937.

    The program continues with Kortum imparting the clever narrative of the laid back, ironic love song “Two Sleepy People,” followed by Sammy Fain’s lighthearted, hopeful “I Can Dream Can’t I” (most renowned for its rendition by The Andrews Sisters), the sweet heartfelt caress of “I See Your Face Before Me” (recorded by Frank Sinatra and Johnny Hartman) and the bright, swaggering fun of Jerome Kern’s “You Couldn’t Be Cuter.” After two back-to-back instrumentals — the elegant, lyrical instrumental ballad “Old Folks” and a whimsical stroll through “Roses in December,” Kortum breezes back in with the winsome Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields gem “Exactly Like You” and Irving Berlin’s sultry, slightly melancholy “You’re Laughing At Me” before the closer, the festive, fast-paced “After You’ve Gone,” an instrumental highlighted by the powerhouse clarinet duality of Adam Stein and Daniel Cohen.

    SO MANY MEMORIES will be released on November 7, 2025 on Turtle Bay Records and will be available on CD, vinyl and all streaming platforms.

Close-up of a middle-aged man with glasses, a goatee, and short hair, wearing a black shirt, looking directly at the camera.

About Loren Schoenberg

Loren Schoenberg is Senior Scholar of The National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Mr. Schoenberg is currently on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and has lectured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The White House, The New York Philharmonic, Stanford University, and The Aspen Institute. Mr. Schoenberg has conducted the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) as well as The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, The American Jazz Orchestra and the WDR Jazz Orchestra in Koln, Germany.

Mr. Schoenberg, a tenor saxophonist/pianist, has played and recorded with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Heath, Eddie Durham, Marian McPartland, Clark Terry, John Lewis, Christian McBride, Buck Clayton, and was musical director for Bobby Short from 1997-2005.  He also received two Grammy awards, for best album notes in 1994 and 2004. Mr. Schoenberg has been published widely (including the New York Times), and his book, The NPR Guide to Jazz , was released in 2003. He was hired by in 2001 to lead the effort to establish The National Jazz Museum in Harlem and served for over a decade as its Executive Director, creating many of its signal programs, and enlisted Christian McBride, Jonathan Batiste, Ken Burns, and Wynton Marsalis to the museum’s mission.

A longtime radio host on WBGO-FM and WKCR-FM, occasional features on NPR, and Swing Channel host on SIRIUS FM, Mr. Schoenberg is currently heard on KSDS-FM, San Diego.

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