Fullerton Jazz Orchestra & Big Band w/ Francisco Torres

Bill Cunliffe, director Fullerton Jazz Orchestra, directed by Bill Cunliffe, consistently receives high scores and acclaim at major west coast jazz festivals. They have been featured on a live radio broadcast across North America as part of the Playboy Jazz Festival, and in 1991 and 1992 won the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival competing against groups from 50 colleges and universities in seven western states. Jazz combos receive high marks as well, with CSUF’s top combo winning the 2004 and 2006 Reno College Jazz Festival. Fullerton Jazz Orchestra has performed, by invitation, at many leading Southern California festivals and events. They have produced five recordings including their latest, “Sabor!” which features vocalist Freda Payne. To purchase “Sabor!” email the School of Music.

Francisco Torres is a trombonist, bass trombonist, composer, arranger and clinician who hails from the state of Sonora, Mexico but calls Los Angeles, California home. He is equally at home with jazz, classical, latin, funk, reggae, ska, and studio work. He is the trombonist and musical director for the Grammy-Award winning Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band, as well as a member of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band. Francisco has in recent years produced and arranged for Poncho’s albums garnering several Grammy nominations, as well as developing a small reputation for Latin Jazz arranging. He has performed with Latin greats Cachao, Celia Cruz, Arturo Sandoval, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Gilberto Santa Rosa and Victor Manuelle, and can be heard on records by Michael Buble, Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Spoon, and Los Lobos. As a jazz trombonist he has performed with Joey Defrancesco, Terence Blanchard, Natalie Cole, Nicholas Payton, Clare Fischer, Bill Holman and many others. Television credits include Saturday Night Live, Dancing With The Stars, America’s Got Talent, The Latin Grammys, the ALMA Awards, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and can be heard in the soundtracks of “Confessions Of A Shopaholic,” “Charlie St. Cloud,” and “Dance With Me.”