Saturday Night Live Band
The Saturday Night Live Band is the house band of the NBC television program Saturday Night Live.
Role on ''Saturday Night Live''
The band consists of mostly jazz, R&B, and some rock musicians and features a strong horn section. They normally play the opening theme music, musical pieces in between commercial breaks, and the closing theme music "Closing Theme," written by founding member Howard Shore. Often, the band will provide the music to a sketch when necessary.Band leaders and musical directors
Musician and future Academy Award winning film composer Howard Shore was the original musical director and bandleader from 1975 until 1980. Paul Shaffer recounted that Jean Doumanian offered him to be the new musical-director in light of Howard Shore leaving, but he turned it down, citing in part that he didn't want to start the show again with a brand new cast, and he felt five years was enough time to do the show.So, singer and songwriter Kenny Vance became the musical director for the show's sixth season. Original band member and trombonist Tom Malone took over leadership duties under executive producer Dick Ebersol's tenure from 1981 to 1985. Hall & Oates guitarist G.E. Smith came on board as the new musical director once original producer Lorne Michaels returned and stayed in that position until 1995 when lead saxophonist Lenny Pickett was promoted as bandleader.
Katreese Barnes also served as the music director for a time, around the year 2000.
Keyboardist Leon Pendarvis and guitarist Maddie Rice are also musical directors alongside Pickett.
Other projects
utilized the horn section of the Saturday Night Live Band for her performance of "If It's Over" during her 1992 MTV Unplugged special.Tom Malone, Lou Marini, and Alan Rubin were members of the Blues Brothers band fronted by SNL cast members John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. They were also featured in the The [Blues Brothers (film)|first Blues Brothers movie], with Malone as a member of fictional lounge act "Murph and the Magic Tones," Rubin as maitre d' of an expensive French restaurant, and Marini as a fry cook at Aretha Franklin's soul food restaurant. Paul Shaffer was also involved in early Blues Brothers performances, but had scheduling conflicts and could not appear in the film, until the sequel.
Members
Current members
- Leon Pendarvis – keyboards, musical director
- Lenny Pickett – tenor saxophone, musical director
- Steve Turre – trombone
- Alex Foster – alto saxophone
- Christine Ohlman – vocals
- Shawn Pelton – drums
- Valerie Naranjo – percussion
- James Genus – bass guitar
- Ron Blake – baritone saxophone, flute
- Tuffus Zimbabwe – keyboards
- Maddie Rice – electric guitar and musical director
- Summer Camargo – trumpet
Musical directors
Past members
Founders- Bob Cranshaw – bass guitar
- Lew Del Gatto – baritone saxophone
- Cheryl Hardwick – keyboards
- Howard Johnson – bass saxophone, tuba
- Bert Jones – electric guitar
- Tom Malone – trombone, trumpet
- Lou Marini – tenor saxophone
- Alan Rubin – trumpet
- Paul Shaffer – keyboards
- Dahaud Shaar– drums
- Howard Shore – alto saxophone
- Mauricio Smith – baritone saxophone
- Gregory Bloch - violin, mandolin
- Steve Jordan – drums
- Buddy Williams – drums
- Marcus Miller – bass guitar
- Elliott Randall – electric guitar
- David Sanborn – alto saxophone
- Georg Wadenius – electric guitar
- George Young – alto and baritone saxophones
- Ray Chew – keyboards
- Ronnie Cuber – baritone saxophone
- Lawrence Feldman – alto saxophone
- Neil Jason – bass guitar
- Chris Palmaro – keyboards
- David Spinozza – electric guitar
- Tom Barney – bass guitar
- Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
- Steve Ferrone – drums
- Earl Gardner – trumpet
- G.E. Smith – electric guitar
- Tom Wolk – bass guitar
- Chris Parker – drums
- Buster Poindexter – vocals
- Tony Garnier – bass guitar
- Matt Chamberlain – drums
- Paul Ossola – bass guitar
- Jane Getter – electric guitar
- Lino Gomez – baritone saxophone
- Yoshiko Hirashige – electric guitar
- Lukasz Gottwald – electric guitar
- Katreese Barnes – keyboards
- Jared Scharff – electric guitar