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Jazz Articles about Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

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Book Review

50 Years at the Village Vanguard: Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

Read "50 Years at the Village Vanguard: Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan


50 Years at the Village Vanguard: Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra Dave Lisik and Eric Allen 316 Pages ISBN: #9780692808580 SkyDeck 2017 During the heydays of the big bands, people swooned and jitterbugged to the swinging sounds of these large ensembles. Names like Count Basie, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Cab Calloway, Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw were household names to most folks. Large ballrooms featured the big bands and ...

Album Review

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer

Read "OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Questo disco ci è giunto con un po' di ritardo ma va assolutamente segnalato. È infatti uno dei migliori dischi dell'anno nonchè un omaggio al genio orchestrale di Bob Brookmeyer. Forse non tutti sanno che lo storico trombonista, partner negli anni cinquanta di Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan e Jimmy Giuffre, è stato uno di massimi orchestratori moderni: nel 1966 partecipò alla fondazione della Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, scrivendo decine di partiture, e nel 1990 ne divenne il direttore, quando la ...

8
Album Review

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer

Read "OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer" reviewed by John Ephland


There's a richness, a depth, a density to his varied charts. And the soloists and ensemble passages inside those charts! Such has always been the case with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, then, and now. For real, gliding from the spirit of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, this edition of the VJO now embraces another one of its own: trombonist/composer/arranger/pianist Bob Brookmeyer, with Over Time: Music Of Bob Brookmeyer. And what different sound comes from this grand aggregate of ...

5
Album Review

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer

Read "OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer" reviewed by Jack Bowers


While it may be hard to believe, the reality is that the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra is nearing the end of its first half-century together. Formed in 1966 as the Thad Jones -Mel Lewis Orchestra, it continued on after Jones' departure as the Mel Lewis Orchestra, then as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra after Lewis' death in February 1990. During many of those years, the ensemble was enriched by the compositions and arrangements of the renowned Bob Brookmeyer (1929-2011), a master craftsman ...

15
Extended Analysis

The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: OverTime: Music Of Bob Brookmeyer

Read "The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: OverTime: Music Of Bob Brookmeyer" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer extraordinaire Mel Lewis may have given birth to the band that's now known as The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, but the late Bob Brookmeyer gave the group artistic independence at a time when it was sorely needed. When Jones left the fold and departed for Europe at the tail end of the '70s, things could've gone a very different way for this storied outfit: it could've simply carried on as a pretty good ...

185
Album Review

The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: Forever Lasting - Live in Tokyo

Read "Forever Lasting - Live in Tokyo" reviewed by Edward Blanco


The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra, the New York big band founded in 1966, loved to tour Japan resulting in its popular 1974 release of Live In Tokyo (Denon). Continuing the tradition of playing Monday nights at New York's Village Vanguard, as well as performing in Japan, The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra--as the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra has been known for decades--presents Forever Lasting--Live In Tokyo a double-CD set capturing a recent live recording in Tokyo. Led by ...

880
Profile

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: A Band in the Vanguard

Read "Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: A Band in the Vanguard" reviewed by George Kanzler


Not only is this the 75th anniversary of the Village Vanguard, this month also marks the 44th anniversary of the Monday night residency of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (VJO), begun in 1966 as the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Those Monday nights are a very significant part of the Vanguard's legacy as THE premier jazz club in history. Before cornetist, flugelhornist, composer and arranger Jones and drummer Lewis brought their big band into the Vanguard, ...


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