The Baltimore bass clarinetist and composer has presented his nine member jazz orchestra for over 10 years and along the way received accolades including the $25,000 Baker prize, selections as a rising star by jazz’s DownBeat Magazine in its national 2015, 2014 and 2013 critics poll, and an NPR pick for his last album Inheritance as one of the top 10 albums of 2012.

His new record Blues for Tahrir makes his biggest statement to date by setting Egypt’s Arab Spring movement to music in a fusion of jazz with Middle Eastern influences. For Marcus, the son of an Egyptian immigrant father, the project stemmed from efforts to connect more deeply with his own heritage and chronicle Egypt’s 2011-2013 revolution with music.

The album has garnered attention including an invitation for the band to tour in Egypt at the Cairo Jazz Festival in October 2015.

Todd Marcus - bass clarinet (Baltimore)
Greg Tardy - tenor sax (Knoxville)
Brent Birckhead - flute/alto sax (NY)
Russell Kirk - alto sax (Baltimore)
Alex Norris - trumpet (New York)
Darius Jones - trombone (New York)
Bruce Barth - piano (New York)
Jeff Reed - bass (Baltimore)
Warren Wolf - drums (Baltimore)
Akua Allrich - vocal (DC)

"Listeners won't have any trouble recognizing Marcus's compelling gifts for composing and arranging." --- The Washington Post

"Marcus...is clearly what the jazz polls call a "rising star" - as a composer-arranger and as a bass clarinetist. In Marcus' hands, the bass clarinet is no longer a specialty instrument. Its unique timbral richness becomes incisive, fully capable of forceful expression." --- JazzTimes

"Marcus is not only one of the great individualists in jazz, he's also a great composer...But it transcends genre: it’s Middle Eastern, and it’s cinematic, and it has a mighty angst-fueled majesty that under ideal circumstances also ought to reach the rock audience that gravitates toward artsy bands like Radiohead or Pink Floyd." --- New York Music Daily