Results for "band/orchestra"

Pharaohs

The legend of The Pharaohs starts at Crane Junior College on the West side of Chicago. Under the tutelage of James Mack a student band is formed- The Jazzmen- which in 1962 wins the best band category at Chicago's annual Harvest Moon Festival. The band featured a front-line of Charles Handy (trumpet) Louis Satterfield (trombone) and Don Myrick (alto sax) backed by Maurice White (trap drums), RAMANANA (Fred Humphrey) (Piano) and bassist Ernest McCarthy. At the time Chicago based Chess Records was fast becoming America's premier forum for progressive Black music and jazzmen White, Satterfield and Handy became prominent session players at the label joining an illustrious group which already featured guitarist Pete Cosey, arranger /pianists Phil Wright and the late Charles Stepney. After a while these musicians moved over to the South Side to the fledgling Affro Arts Theater where they joined the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, under the leadership of Phil Cohran

Original Dixieland Jazz Band

Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a New Orleans band that made the first jazz recording in 1917. The group made the first recordings of many jazz standards, probably the most famous being "Tiger Rag." In late 1917 it changed the name's spelling to "Jazz." The band consisted of five white musicians who had previously played in the Papa Jack Laine bands, a diverse and racially integrated collection of musicians who played for parades, dances, and advertising in New Orleans. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who billed themselves "The Creators of Jazz", have long been been dismissed as the White guys who copied African- American music, and called it their own

Oregon

For over three decades OREGON has inspired audiences in renowned concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and Vienna’s Mozartsaal; at international jazz clubs and major festivals such as Montreux, Pori, Berlin, Montreal, and Newport Jazz; and on tours throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Eastern and Western Europe, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Algeria, and Australia. OREGON began in 1960 at the University of Oregon with undergraduate students Ralph Towner and Glen Moore who formed a musical friendship on bass and piano inspired by Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro and later by Brazilian music

Onward Brass Band

One of the most recognizable and respected names in the storied history of New Orleans brass band music is “Onward.” Founded “some time before 1877” according to one source, the Onward Brass Band gained considerable popularity during the 1880s. By the time of the Spanish-American War in the late 19th century, the ensemble had achieved a reputation as the number one marching band in New Orleans. Following the war, cornetist Manuel Perez (a student of Onward founder Sylvester Coustaut) assumed leadership of the band. Onward Brass Band soon came to be regarded in the local music community as the most exciting of the city’s early brass bands

New Orleans Rhythm Kings

The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were one of the hottest jazz bands of the early 1920s, and a strong influence on many later musicians, including Bix Beiderbecke, Muggsy Spanier, Mezz Mezzrow, and Benny Goodman. Best known for their 1923 integrated recording session with Jelly Roll Morton, the NORK’s smooth, swinging style signaled a departure from the raucous novelty sound of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and its imitators. Another hallmark of the band was its emphasis on solo performances, while traditional New Orleans jazz was still heavily dependent on ensemble playing. The solos of Leon Roppolo on clarinet and George Brunies on trombone are still considered classic, and have often been copied on other bands’ recordings. Following the success of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Tom Brown’s Band in New York and Chicago, savvy club owners were eager to get their own New Orleans bands

Modern Jazz Quartet

Active since: 1952

The Modern Jazz Quartet was a major jazz institution, a band that, counting a seven-year “vacation,” lasted 43 years. During a time when jazz musicians were stereotyped as unreliable, rarely sober and erratic, the MJQ played at concert halls while wearing tuxedos. They are not known to have ever been late, missed a gig, or disappointed an audience. The Modern Jazz Quartet’s evolution began in the Dizzy Gillespie big band of 1946. Due to the complexity of the charts and the strain that it caused in the trumpet section, Gillespie featured his rhythm section on an occasional number

Missourians

The Missourians - orchestra/ensemble This midwest band, greatly influenced by Benny Moten's orchestra, began life as Wilson Robinson's Syncopators in the early 1920s. In 1923, they were called 'Wilson Robinson's Bostonians', In 1925, this was the same group that became the house band at New York City's Cotton Club, where they replaced Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, who was the first band to play in New York City's renovated and renamed Cotton Club. When Henderson left, the Missourians moved in, but under the name of Andy Preer and The Cotton Club Orchestra. In 1926, the band had such sidemen as: Andy Brown (Sax); DePriest Wheeler (trombone); Roger Q

Mississippi Sheiks

The Mississippi Shieks were a very popular string band that came out of the Delta in the 1920's. They consisted of the Chatmon Brothers, Lonnie and Bo, and their neighbor Walter Vincson. The Shieks usaully played dance numbers with Lonnie on the violin, Bo on the guitar and Vincson doing vocal duties. They appealed even to white audiences becuase of their snappy racy repertoire. These type of songs were usually referred to as Hokum Blues, a term for blues that were tongue-in-cheek concerning taboo subjects. The band was named after the Rudolf Valentino movie, 'The Sheik,' which came out in 1921

Mingus Big Band

The Mingus Big Band celebrates the music of composer/bassist Charles Mingus, who died in 1979. Under the artistic direction of Sue Mingus, this 14-piece band performed Thursday MBBnights from 1991 to 2004 at Fez under Time Cafe in New York City. It maintained weekly residencies in the city from May 2004 until October 2008, when it began "Mingus Mondays" at Jazz Standard where it alternates with the Mingus Orchestra and Mingus Dynasty. The Mingus Big Band tours extensively in the United States and abroad, and has ten recordings to its credit, seven of which have been nominated for Grammys.

Microscopic Septet

The music of The Microscopic Septet was the sound of jazz in 20th C. America: all of it, from Ellington to Ayler, bebop to Zorn, Dixieland to experimental, captured in a microcosm. It distilled the essence of jazz as a popular music into a sound that swung, a music that was intelligent, sometimes smart-aleck, and always good clean fun. Optimistic and upbeat, full of innocent confidence, the Microscopic Septet captured not only the sound of jazz, but also the sound - or soundtrack - of 20th Century America. No wonder, then, that when National Public Radio (NPR) needed a new theme song for one of its most popular shows, "Fresh Air, with Terry Gross", broadcast to every home in America, it asked this band to compose the tune and has used it ever since. Active from 1980-1992, The Microscopic Septet was part of New York's emerging Downtown Music Scene, a diverse group of artists on the fringes of jazz, rock, and improv that would converge in the Knitting Factory when the club opened in 1987