The Paul Keller Orchestra turns 20 years old!

The Paul Keller Orchestra is one of Michigan's finest, oldest, most-respected and well-traveled jazz big bands. The PKO has held forth every Monday night, for over twenty years, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, first at the Bird of Paradise Jazz Club, then at the Firefly Club on Ashley Street, then at the New Firefly Club on Main Street AND NOW at their NEW HOME: The Keystone Martini Bar located at 200 W. Michigan Ave. (downstairs beneath J. Neil's Mongolian Grill) in downtown Ypsilanti, MI. Since its inception in 1989 by string bassist, composer and arranger Paul Keller, the PKO has maintained the highest standards of musical excellence and has enjoyed providing top-quality jazz and entertainment to their loyal fan base. The PKO's voluminous library of over 1,000 arrangements includes classic, obscure and original big band material from the entire history of jazz.

The Paul Keller Orchestra's website is www.pkorecords.com.

The PKO has garnered great popular and critical acclaim accepting the 1998 and 2000 Washtenaw Council For The Arts Awards for Musical Excellence and the 2003 and 2007 Detroit Music Awards for Best Big Band. The Paul Keller Orchestra has recorded seven CDs, enjoyed two European tours, and performed at nearly every Michigan music festival, including the Montreux/Detroit Jazz Festival, the Michigan Jazz Festival, the Pine Mountain Music Festival,

In concert, the PKO has accompanied many great jazz artists including saxophonists Red Holloway, Larry Nozero (Henry Mancini) and Arno Marsh (Woody Herman, Buddy Rich), clarinetists Henry Questa (Lawrence Welk), Jim Wyse (PKO CD: A Tribute To Benny Goodman) and Dave Bennett (Tribute To Benny Goodman), drummer Jeff Hamilton (Oscar Peterson), trumpeters Fred Radke (Tribute To Harry James) and Walter White, vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, The Four Freshmen, Sunny Wilkinson, Mark Randissi (Sounds of Sinatra) and Ryan DeHues, and pianists James Dapogny, Ellen Rowe, Charles Boles, Mr. B, Bob Seeley, Axel Zwingenberg, and Eddie Russ.

One of the PKO's proudest on-going achievements has been the creation and maintenance of the PKO Jazz Student Outreach Program in which Keller invites Michigan middle school, high school and college jazz big bands to share the spotlight with the PKO. Each band plays a set of its own prepared material and then the PKO invites the students to join the pros on stage for sight reading, improvisation and on-the-spot musical training. For many of the participants, this is their very first interaction with professional musicians performing in front of a LIVE audience. The encouragement and support they receive from the PKO members is an inspirational and life-changing learning experience that is immediately reflected in the joyful, smiling faces of these talented young people. Over the years, the PKO Jazz Student Outreach Program has made a positive impact in the lives of over 5,000 student musicians!

The PKO is leader/bassist Paul Keller; pianist Duncan McMillan; drummer Pete Siers; saxophonists Keith Kaminski, Ben Jansson, Bobby Streng, Brian Romeo and Paul Klinger; trumpeters Patrick Hession, Brandon Cooper, Paul Finkbeiner and Jeff Gedz; trombonists Gene Bartley, Terry Kimura and Brooks Barnes. Singer Susan Chastain is an important part of every PKO performance, supplying grace, wit and delightful vocals from the Great American Songbook.