“You can compare us to the Renaissance guys of the avant garde, the kind of attitude that Ornette Coleman had in his music. You can mix that with a punk-rock aesthetic because we don’t want to have to play the jazz mantra all the time” - Jim Hobbs

Even by jazz’s sometimes bizarre standards, alto saxophonist/composer Jim Hobbs is an anomaly. Indiana born renegade; Hobbs is the spokesman/leader of the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, a collective ensemble which is actually a quartet comprised of bassist Timo Shanko, cornet player Taylor Ho Bynum and the slash and burn drums of Django Carranza. The eclecticism of his influences is what sets him and his group apart - Duke Ellington Suites, heavy metal, Don Cherry and Willie Nelson’s song stylings (“the way he can twist melodies that are common”).

This seemingly disparate mix and match of American culture is all the more unusual because Hobbs and company bring to it a sense of fun. “This music is supposed to be fun!!” claims Hobbs. “Our sarcasm which has shown through in our song titles is where our punk energy lies; it’s not that we have punk politics or believe in punk anarchy. Just like rock musicians, we borrow some tradition in what we do, but we also try to be “free”. The rock musicians our age had the sense to pick up a guitar, which made more money than a saxophone.” Such remarks might lead you to believe that the Fully Celebrated Orchestra are an ad hoc band of auteurs. On the contrary, Jim Hobbs has split reeds and breath with Joe Viola and George Garzone while at Berklee College of Music; logged calypso gigs with Mackie Burnett’s band, Panorama, and thrashed with a variety of alternative rock bands.

Django Caranza incorporates everything from free-jazz drumming to reggae “riddims” in the swirl of Fully Celebrated performances. His backing of “every reggae superstar to come to the Boston area” and additional work with ex-Ellingtonian trombonist Vince Prudente, only serves to add to his arsenal.

Taylor Ho Bynum is a marvelous cornetist with an outwardly directed post-bop sensibility. He harmonizes (or is it harmolodic-izes?) nicely with Hobbs and in places blows pregnant cornet blats and simple muted horn lines.

Rounding out the ensemble, Timo Shanko, the California born bassist whose quickened pulse acts as the bottom and incineratory agent in this band’s bitchesbrew of hard-core impulse and freedom. Timo Shanko released his debut solo album ‘Freedom Right Now’ on Skycap records last year (2004).

“The Fully Celebrated Orchestra is a group, although members can change within the band. But whatever person fills in has to fit in with the band’s sound, that pocket of sound which exists where we are at our most relaxed.”