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Large Ensembles: Is There a Place in This Large Music World?
by R.J. DeLuke
The big band in jazz has a long and glorious history. It was a prevalent form in jazz music in the '20s and '30s, comprising a substantial part of America's popular music heard on radio, spun on gramophones and record players, and enjoyed in dance halls. It gave rise to iconic band leaders like Fletcher Henderson, ...
Jazz Orchestras
by Nick Catalano
This excerpt appears in New York Nights: Performing, Producing and Writing in Gotham (IUniverse, 2008). In addition to the productions of the dance band shows, being a Performing Arts producer meant that I had the opportunity to present artists from every genre imaginable. I steadfastly tried to adhere to some sense of objectivity listening ...
Mike Vax Big Band: Sounds From The Road
by Marcia Hillman
Featuring no less than a dozen alumni from the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Mike Vax's Big Band displays the drive and spirit of the musical organization that crisscrossed the country from the 1940s. All of the essentials of the Kenton sound are here. A tight and smooth sax section is heard on the opening ...
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 ...
Bob Florence Limited Edition / Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band / Dana Legg Stage Band / John Burnett Swing Orchestra
by Jack Bowers
Bob Florence Limited Edition Legendary MAMA 2009 “Legendary" is a word that is often misused and shamelessly over-used, and in this case entirely appropriate. Even though composer / arranger / pianist Bob Florence is no longer with us, and wasn't in the studio when his Limited Edition recorded ...
Stan Getz: Stan Getz with Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida
by Andrew Velez
This is music that may be impossible to listen to while remaining still. The instant Stan Getz and Laurindo Almeida take off with “Minina Moca" ("Young Lady"), the party's on. Although the performances throughout are masterful, nothing is about showboating. This is music of great beauty in a totally relaxed setting. By the ...
Mark Murphy: Inside the Mystery
by Suzanne Lorge
Beyond its stylistic differentiators, jazz contains what vocalist Mark Murphy calls “a wonderful mystery," a mystery that was fostered in small, regional clubs around the US during the '30s-40s, when Murphy was developing the distinctive vocal style that launched his decades-long career. “I've seen this mysterious quality of jazz set rooms on fire," Murphy ...
Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select
by Samuel Chell
Jazz was never more schizophrenic than in the 1970s. On the one hand, musicians equally savvy about mixing genres and running mixing boards were selling out arenas and producing lucrative, widely played albums, with bass-heavy danceable beats or soothing instrumental sounds tailor-made for air play on FM radio. At the other extreme, many of the jazz ...
Jack Nimitz: Baritone-in-Chief
by Jack Bowers
Baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz died June 10, 2009 at his home in Studio City, California. He was 79 years old. That's hardly headline news except to a relative handful of jazz enthusiasts who were privileged to hear and appreciate his consummate artistry over the span of more than half a century when Nimitz was at the ...
"A Swingin' Affair" Outshines Its Name
by Jack Bowers
With an appreciative bow and genial tip of the hat to the late Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra, the Los Angeles Jazz Institute named its semi-annual big-band soiree May 21-24 at the Sheraton LAX Four Points Hotel “A Swingin' Affair." Was the event able to live up to its name? In the immortal words of ...
