The Phil Norman Tentet

Phil Norman has had an unusual musical career. He began playing music while in the third grade, growing up near Oakland, California but, although he gigged a bit in his early days (including while attending USC), he chose to make his livelihood in the business world, eventually starting his own investment company, Associated Financial Group, Inc. However Norman always loved the style of West Coast cool jazz. In 1992 he returned to playing tenor-sax for the fun of it and sat in with a big band. In the fall of 1995, with the assistance of drummer Frank Capp, he put together the Phil Norman Tentet. The group, which plays regularly in the Los Angeles area, brings back the sound of cool jazz (similar in some ways to the Dave Pell Octet) and features such notable sidemen as trumpeter Carl Saunders, pianist Bob Florence and guitarist Dave Koonse with arrangements by Florence, Roger Neumann, Tom Kubis, Ron King, Marty Paich and others. Norman himself rarely takes solos but clearly enjoys leading and playing with the impressive ensemble which in 1996 recorded a CD (On The Town) for SeaBreeze. If by Yes followed in 1998.