Novel Jazz is a group of Maine-based musicians with over two centuries of collective musical experience performing swinging jazz from the Great American Songbook.  The year 2026 marks the 22nd anniversary of the Septet.  They specifically focus on the great works of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, ranked as two of America’s all-time finest composers (not just within the jazz genre, either!).  Using historic recordings, plus regular trips to the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian Museum as well as the Strayhorn Collection at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Novel Jazz has collected and arranged selected works from the several-thousand-composition repertoire of these two prolific composers. Concerts include both the music plus the rich history behind each piece... literally the very foundations that made jazz what it is today!