Results for "Metropole Orkest"

Sarah Vaughan, G. Thomas Allen, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Billy Eckstine and More!

by Jua Howard
July 28, 2025

Greetings Music Family! It's time for another episode of the “First Instrument Jazz Show!" I've got new music from The DIVA Jazz Orchestra with Ann Hampton Callaway, Nnenna Freelon, Benny Benack III, Emma Smith and Kieran Brown, and more timeless music from Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Cecile McLorin Salvant, G. Thomas Allen, Kate McGarry, Take 6 ...

Tivon Pennicott, Louis Cole, KAMA Kollektiv, Louise van den Heuvel & More

by Ludovico Granvassu
September 3, 2024

Enjoy an episode built along an ideal bridge between Amsterdam and New Amsterdam, with a special focus on the launch of FOOD, a new New York-based label (as well as live events production company, and soon to be brick-and-mortar restaurant) inspired by the storied, artist-run cafe of 1970's SoHo of the same name.Happy listening!

Steely Dan's Jon Herington and Jim Beard

by Mike Jacobs
March 7, 2024

In memory of Jim Beard, this article was first published at All About Jazz on July 6, 2017. While keyboardist / producer Jim Beard and guitarist Jon Herington are both solo recording artists with long and varied careers that straddle jazz, rock and beyond, they may be best known these days for being longtime ...

Ludovico Granvassu's Garden of Jazzy Delights 2023

by Ludovico Granvassu
January 3, 2024

If it is true that, like The Police once put it, “when the world is going down you make the best of what's still around," then throughout 2023 jazz fans were better off than most other social groups. In a year in which everyday news brought ever more inconceivable disappointments, jazz musicians, labels, festivals and venues ...

Olympians

By Vince Mendoza

Label: Modern Recordings
Released: 2023
Track listing: Quixote; Esperanto; Miracle Child; Partido Alto; House of Reflections; Barcelona.

Metropole Orkest

The Metropole Orkest is a jazz and pop orchestra based in the Netherlands, and is the largest full-time ensemble of its kind in the world.

A hybrid orchestra, it combines jazz, big band and classical symphony orchestra styles. Comprising between 52 and 97 musicians, it is versatile across many musical forms, and is equipped with a "double rhythm section" – one for pop and rock, and one for jazz based music.

The Metropole Orkest was founded in 1945 by Dolf van der Linden at the urging of officials from Netherlands Public Broadcasting, which manages and subsidizes the orchestra. The name of the group was suggested by van der Linden, one of the musicians, who led the ensemble for 35 years until he stepped down in 1980. He was replaced by Rogier van Otterloo, who led the group until his sudden death in 1988. Dick Bakker then held the baton until 2005, when Vince Mendoza took over. He gave the orchestra a more international character. In August 2013, Jules Buckley took over the position of chief conductor from Mendoza.

Vince Mendoza Metropole Orkest: Olympians

by Richard J Salvucci
March 16, 2023

Many years ago Dizzy Gillespie recorded an album called The New Continent (Limelight, 1965). Whether it was commercially successful is hard to say, but it featured an all-star cast of Los Angeles session players. The recording made a deep impression on some listeners because it was creative, dynamic, exotic and simply enjoyable. Good compositions (by Lalo ...

The Costello Jazz Show, Part 1

by Ludovico Granvassu
September 7, 2021

Jazz is one of the most recurrent motifs in the multi-layered quilt that Elvis Costello's discography is; and one of those which make that eclectic patchwork both cohesive and uniquely appealing. The son of a jazz trumpeter/singer with a passion for 40s American jazz and a record seller with ears wide open, it's perhaps ...

Live, Eclectic, And Electrifying

by Mike Jacobs
April 30, 2021

Live albums. Love them, hate them, they are definitely a different animal from the studio album. It may be argued--especially with all of the tools available currently--that the “studio" recording is the means by which music can be crafted and honed into the most accurate representation of the artist's vision. And yes, live albums can be ...

Rodrigo Faina and Change Ensemble: Different Roots

by Jerome Wilson
April 25, 2021

This is not the usual large ensemble jazz recording. Instead of having instrumental groups play against each other, this music moves largely as a massed force with only sparing solo statements. It carries the gravity and weight of classical music and mixes in the harmonies and colors of jazz composers like Gil Evans and Kenny Wheeler ...