Results for "Bill Holman"

The Stan Kenton Orchestra / Trinity College: Concert Impressions

by Jack Bowers
February 23, 2020

Here's another splendid two-disc anthology from Tantara Productions showcasing music from the capacious Stan Kenton library, performed on Disc 1 by the Kenton Orchestra circa 1972-76 and on Disc 2 by the Trinity College Big Band, Alumni Band and Symphony Orchestra in 2004 and 2007. Tantara has now released more than twenty albums, all devoted to ...

Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: A Kenton Trilogy, Part 1: Dance Time

by Jack Bowers
February 9, 2020

Better late than never. Having already appraised Part 2 of Sounds of Yesteryear's three-part salute to the Stan Kenton Orchestra, it seemed only proper that the same should be done (albeit out of order) for Part 1 (and Part 3 as well, whenever it is released). Unlike Part 2, which is devoted to the artistry of ...

Bill Holman

Born: May 21, 1927

Born Willis Leonard Holman on May 21, 1927 in Olive, CA, near Santa Ana, Bill Holman took up clarinet in junior high school and tenor saxophone in high school by which time he was leading his own band. After serving in the Navy and studying engineering, he decided in the late '40s that he wanted to write big band music and studied for a while at the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles with Dave Robertson and Dr. Alfred Sendrey. He also studied composition privately with Russ Garcia and saxaphone with Lloyd Reese.

In 1949 he played with the Ike Carpenter Band, in 1951, he was writing for Charlie Barnet, and in 1952 he began his association with Stan Kenton, for whom he wrote and played for many years. During the '50s, he was also active in the West Coast jazz movement, playing in small bands led by Shorty Rogers and Shelly Manne, and co-leading a quintet with Mel Lewis in 1958.

Stan Kenton: A Kenton Trilogy, Part 2 / The Sound of Jazz

by Jack Bowers
January 13, 2020

The Sound of Jazz by the legendary Stan Kenton Orchestra follows Part 1 of a Kenton Trilogy, Dance Time, and hopefully precedes a third component yet to be named. Although Kenton has been gone for more than forty years (he died in August 1979), he has hardly been forgotten, with reissues of concert and studio sessions ...

Stan Kenton: Back to Balboa

December 19, 2019

Back in the early 1980s, I headed out to Los Angeles to visit a friend in Huntington Beach for a few days. For the summer trip—my first to the L.A. area—I packed my Sony Walkman and a bunch of West Coast jazz cassettes. The tapes weren't to entertain. My motive was more anthropological. I wanted to ...

Take Five with Ed Palermo

by Edward Palermo
October 9, 2019

Meet Ed Palermo Ed Palermo is an arranger, composer and alto saxophonist mostly known for his big band and their interpretations of the music of Ed's hero, Frank Zappa. Coming out of college in jny: Chicago, his initial plan was to become a great jazz tenor saxophonist in the vein of Michael Brecker, Steve Grossman and ...

Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw: Crossroads

by Jack Bowers
February 24, 2019

The Netherlands's Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, which started life in 1996 as the New Concert Big Band, a successor to such leading lights as Count Basie and Woody Herman, has evolved since then into an up-to-date ensemble that more closely resembles New York's Vanguard Jazz Orchestra or composer Bill Holman's legendary West Coast rehearsal band. ...

Live From Birmingham: Thomas Stone, Takahiro Kawaguchi, Percy Pursglove & Martin Carthy

by Martin Longley
December 22, 2018

Thomas Stone/Takahiro Kawaguchi Centrala August 9, 2018 Centrala is yet another one of those individualist art joints in the post-industrial Digbeth area of Birmingham, balancing audio and visual forms. They have a regular diet of evening performances, usually of a more unusual bent. Coming up from London, Thomas Stone was ...

Jerome Wilson's Best Releases Of 2018

by Jerome Wilson
December 18, 2018

It may be unwieldy to keep a large jazz ensemble together for economic reasons but this year was still full of outstanding big band recordings, whether done through commissions, arrangers working with established orchestras or even actual working ensembles. Several of the releases on my list are examples of that. Also this year had the usual ...

Jay Thomas: We Always Knew

by Paul Rauch
November 16, 2018

Legacy is a fleeting notion. It is incomprehensible in real time when a career hits high points, when certain doors open to quantitative opportunity. Jay Thomas can tell you a thing or two about that, based on his own personal experience as a jazz artist over half a century. His story includes playing on the Seattle ...