Jazz Articles about George Gee Swing Orchestra

George Gee Swing Orchestra: Winter Wonderland

by Jack Bowers
November 4, 2023

After an absence of several years the New York City-based George Gee Swing Orchestra is back in a recording studio, doing what it does best--swinging merrily through a Winter Wonderland chock-full of holiday favorites that kids of all ages can relate to and appreciate. Gee formed his first band while still in college at Carnegie Mellon University, one day after interviewing Count Basie on the campus radio station. After moving back to New York City, where he ...

George Gee Swing Orchestra: Swing Makes You Happy!

by Dan Bilawsky
January 3, 2015

Swing Makes You Happy! isn't just an album title: it's a mantra and belief system that guides the George Gee Swing Orchestra, a little big band intent on rekindling the ear's love affair with music associated with a bygone era. Gee has been in the big band business for more than three decades, but it's his eighteen-years-and-counting residency at New York City's Swing46 Jazz and Supper Club that has afforded him the opportunity to fine tune and ...

George Gee: Swing Makes You Happy!

by Jack Bowers
December 17, 2014

The George Gee Swing Orchestra swings in the manner of Gee's friend and mentor, Count Basie, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale (Gee's group numbers only eleven, and that includes vocalists Hilary Gardner and John Dokes). Even so, the Basie spirit is ever-present, and if Swing Makes You Happy, Gee's eighth album as leader (and first for Rondette Records) should put a smile on your face and a spring in your step. Thanks to resourceful charts by trombonist / music ...

The George Gee Big Band: Settin' the Pace

by Elliott Simon
May 6, 2005

Although they're not typically household names, a strong case can be made that no single group has had more of an influence on the sound of American music than arrangers. One thing that can't be disputed though, is that the arranger is front and center when it comes to big band swing. A first-person participatory tribute to the arranging skills of Frank Foster, the latest from the George Gee Big Band, Settin' the Pace, showcases Foster's music under his own ...

George Gee Big Band: Settin' The Pace

by Jim Santella
October 2, 2004

The full-bodied big band arrangements of Frank Foster make this session swing with a lush tonality and a finger-snappin' groove. The New York ensemble that George Gee has put together tackles each standard piece with a passionate love for the art. And the timing is right. Settin' The Pace also serves as a fine tribute to what Count Basie developed and nurtured for us several decades past.

Outstanding soloists on Gee's big band session include Howard Johnson, Robert ...

George Gee and the Jump, Jive and Wailers: Buddha Boogie

by Jack Bowers
April 19, 2004

George Gee, as energetic and enthusiastic a bandleader as you are likely to meet, has at least two bands under his baton, the larger Swing Orchestra and the Jump, Jive and Wailers, which is actually a tentet. And he may have three, if the Swing Orchestra isn’t a renamed version of Gee’s Make Believe Ballroom Orchestra, which recorded at least two albums a few years back. Whatever the case, the Wailers are a throwback to the jump/swing/proto-R&B groups of the ...

The George Gee Swing Orchestra: Swingin' at Swing City Zurich

by Jack Bowers
April 12, 2004

According to the liner notes, George Gee’s Swingin’ at Swing City Zurich was recorded in a train station, the Hautbanhoff, an assertion that isn’t hard to believe once one hears the outcome. Having enthusiastically reviewed two of Gee’s earlier albums ( Swingin’ Live!, Swingin’ Away ), also recorded in concert, I was rather let down by Zurich. Not so much by the band, which recovers from an erratic start on “Trumpet Blues and Cantabile” to give the early-morning performance its ...