Results for "Big Band"

Big Band

WDR Big Band

Active since: 1946

The WDR Big Band, based in Cologne, Germany, is widely considered one of Europe's premier, full-time professional jazz ensembles. Formed in 1946 and evolving into a dedicated jazz big band in 1980, the ensemble is renowned for its razor-sharp precision, versatility, and broad stylistic range, covering everything from classic swing to modern, fusion, and world music. As the big band for the German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk, its mission is to promote jazz culture, and it achieves this through an extensive catalog of recordings and frequent collaborations with legendary international jazz artists, including Vince Mendoza, Ron Carter, and the Brecker Brothers. This collaborative work has earned the band multiple prestigious awards, including several Grammy Awards. The WDR Big Band is a flexible and technically brilliant institution that honors the jazz tradition while actively commissioning new music and shaping the future of large-ensemble performance.

Joan Chamorro

Born: 1962

Joan Chamorro is a multi-instrumentalist (bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, cornet, double bass) with more than 100 recordings with different jazz groups in the country, including more than 50 as a leader. He is widely known for his success creating and leading the acclaimed youth big band Sant Andreu Jazz Band.

Chamorro studied classical saxophone with Adolf Ventas. At the same time, he obtained an advanced degree at the Taller de Músics in Barcelona, where he became a saxophone and musical language teacher (department head and author of the books used at the school for several years).

Tony Martin (2)

Born: December 25, 1913

Tony Martin was a popular American crooner and actor during the big band era. Born Alvin Morris in San Fransisco, California, on Christmas Day in 1913, Martin began his career playing saxophone alongside Woody Herman in Tom Gerun's orchestra. He was convinced by dance band leader Ben Bernie to switch to singing in the early 1930s, but did not gain much mainstream recognition until 1936, when he appeared in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rodgers musical "Follow the Fleet". By 1938, Martin was an established and popular crooner as well as actor, and had given up playing saxophone. Throughout the 1940s Martin scored multiple hit songs, such as "To Each His Own" and the Oscar-nominated "It's a Blue World" from Music in My Heart

Charlie Spivak

Born: February 17, 1907

Charlie Spivak was a popular American bandleader and trumpeter, most prominent during the swing era (roughly 1933 - 1947). Born on February 17, 1907, Spivak's early career was spent performing with some of the period's top bands, including the orchestras of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller as well as Bob Crosby's small Dixieland combo the Bob Cats. As a bandleader himself, Spivak became known as "The Man Who Plays the Sweetest Trumpet in the World" and drew favourable comparisons to Harry James, America's number one trumpet idol of the 1940s. Though he never achieved the same level of fame or critical aclaim as some of his contemporaries, such as Miller, James, the Dorseys or Benny Goodman, his records were consistently popular, especially during World War II

Russ Morgan

Born: April 29, 1904

Russell Morgan (born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on April 29, 1904) was an American swing-era big band leader, arranger, composer and trombonist best known for his radio show Music in the Morgan Manner and his composition "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", which he co-wrote with Larry Stock and James Cavanaugh in 1944. Morgan's musical career began in the 1920s, when his skills as an arranger brought him work with some of the era's top bands, including those of Fletcher Henderson and Paul Whiteman, then known as the "King of Jazz". He went on to lead a succesful "sweet" band himself and become a popular figure on radio in the 1930s and 1940s

Big Band Alumni

Active since: 2000

The Big Band Alumni is a 17-piece big band that features some musicians that are graduates of the greatest big bands of all time like Benny Goodman, Harry James, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Jimmy & Tommy Dorsey, and many others from the Big Band Era.

The Big Band Alumni is in its 25th year of existence. The band was created by musicians who were members of the big bands (largely) of the 1940’s who were responsible for the swing era. Over the 21 years there have been replacements. Like many big bands of the 40’s we also have vocalists who have always been younger than the original band members.

David Bode

Some are raised in New Orleans’ musical tradition. Others join it by force of will. David Bode, a New Orleans-born saxophonist and composer, felt the pull of his city’s timeless, creative spirit from childhood. But as the first musician in his family, connecting with it required desire and persistence. A graduate of the renowned Loyola University and University of New Orleans music programs, Bode, who first began performing professionally while in high school, has spent more than two decades performing, writing, and recording in New Orleans and beyond. He is a regular at his city’s famed music clubs, concert halls, and festivals performing with New Orleans High Society, the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others, and is the leader of the David Bode Big Band. Good Hang, Bode’s first release as a leader, blends his eclectic musical sensibility into the classic sounds of big band jazz, resulting in an energetic debut.

Desi Arnaz

Born: March 2, 1917

Jessika Smith