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BuJazzO: That's German for Swinging Big Band Jazz
by Jack Bowers
On August 8, my friend Wes Pfarner and I drove to Santa Fe for a once-in-a lifetime event: a performance by the German Federal Youth Jazz Orchestra, better known to big band enthusiasts by its more condensed and colorful name, BuJazzO. The twenty-piece ensemble, directed by Jiggs Whigham, an American trombonist and educator from Cleveland, Ohio, ...
Big Band Jazz: It's Not Just for Guys Anymore
by Jack Bowers
Back in the early '90s, Stanley Kay, one-time back-up drummer for the incomparable Buddy Rich, later a manager of such artists as Maurice Hines, Michelle Lee and Paul Burke and the entertainment director for the New York Yankees, had a good idea: the time had come, he reasoned, to assemble an all-woman big band that would ...
Jack's Gone! No He Isn't; Yes He Is; No He Isn't...!
by Jack Bowers
As I sat down to write this month's column, word came that trumpeter Jack Sheldon had died. No sooner had I written a few words about that when word came that trumpeter Jack Sheldon had not died. After some back-and-forth on the internet (is he or isn't he?), the last report, it seems, was the true ...
Gold Medalists Abound at Big Band Olympics
by Jack Bowers
As this is being written, Betty and I are just back from a ten-day visit to California, the first six days of which would be of absolutely no interest to readers of this column. The last four, however, were spent at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel attending the L.A. Jazz Institute's Big Band Olympics," which ...
Glenn Cashman / UAB SuperJazz / Elliot Deutsch Big Band / Russ Spiegel Jazz Orchestra
by Jack Bowers
Glenn Cashman And the Southland Big Band! Primrose Lane Music 2009 Even though Glenn Cashman's superlative Southland Big Band makes its home (technically) south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it is more than a few miles removed from cotton fields, mint juleps and the Mississippi River--to be more precise, in the ...
Salute to Stan Kenton: Artistry in Contrast
by Jack Bowers
Artistry in Rhythm, the Ken Poston / Los Angeles Jazz Institute's 2009 homage to the renowned bandleader Stan Kenton, was held October 8-11 at the Sheraton LAX Four Points Hotel. As always, there was much to see, hear and admire: films, panel discussions, special presentations and, last but not least, no fewer than nineteen concerts by ...
Terry Vosbein and the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra: Progressive Jazz 2009
by Robert J. Robbins
Over the last few years, Terry Vosbein, a Professor of Music at Washington and Lee University and a classically-trained composer of symphonies, operas, and chamber music (not to mention a former bassist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra), has been exhaustively researching the unrecorded scores from the Stan Kenton Collection at the University of North Texas. Now, ...
Brett Favre Isn't The Only Comeback Kid
by Jack Bowers
The ink was barely dry on last month's report that trumpeter Rob Parton had decided to break up his superlative Chicago-based JazzTech Big Band after more than twenty years at the helm before Parton was back with a brand new ensemble, one whose purpose, he says, is to mirror that of the European Radio Orchestras where ...
Jacksonville: Big City, Big Band, Big Plans
by Jack Bowers
Almost everyone who's even mildly interested knows that the big band scene in the US isn't what it used to be. On the other hand, the big bands aren't yet dead, as some alarmists have claimed, or even on life support. Thanks in part to college and armed services programs, there are perhaps as many or ...
Bud Shank: A Voice for the Ages
by Jack Bowers
I'll always have fond memories of the 2007 Prescott (Arizona) Jazz Summit, as it was the last time I had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing the phenomenal alto saxophonist Bud Shank doing what he did best: enfolding an entire audience in the palm of his hand with a seemingly endless stream of irrepressible notes ...