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Woody Herman: Columbia Years
The big band era didn't end with the rise of bebop in 1944. Bands simply figured out how to adapt to the new music's language and soldiered on. For big bands, this language shift meant a need for musicians familiar with the idiom and arrangers who could put the new concepts on paper. Charts had to ...
Strike Up the (Unsung) Bands
by Jack Bowers
The big band era is known for producing a number of enormously successful ensembles whose leaders were household names: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, then on through Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, the brothers Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and, ...
Ed Palermo: We're Only In It For The Music
by Ian Patterson
It's got to be love, hasn't it? Why else would someone bother to transcribe 200 of Frank Zappa's tunes? For what other reason would someone dedicate himself for over 15 years to presenting his arrangements of Zappa's music in the setting of a 17-piece jazz big band, and at a loss to boot? Yes, ...
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 ...
Dan McMillion Jazz Orchestra: Nice N' Juicy
by Robert J. Robbins
For over a decade, brass master Dan McMillion, an alumnus of the Woody Herman and Buddy Rich ensembles, has been maintaining the legacy of Maynard Ferguson to a very high standard in the Central Florida region, winning a Grammy nomination for Up Your Brass (Sea Breeze, 2002). This sixth release--dedicated to the memory of McMillion's wife ...
Jack Cortner Big Band / Peter Hand Big Band / Chicago Jazz Philharmonic
by Jack Bowers
Jack Cortner Big Band Sound Check Jazzed Media 2009 For someone who waited so long before taking his first swings as leader of his own big band, Jack Cortner shows again on Sound Check, the band's second impressive recording in as many years, that he's got game. He's ...
Gary Smulyan: Low Man Aims High
by Edward Bride
A baritone saxophonist who plays like Bird? And harvests more than a half-dozen Grammy awards in the process? That seeming contradiction characterizes the great successes of Gary Smulyan, one of today's most in-demand jazz performers, educators, and recording artists. To be fair, Smulyan has his own voice, but he cites Charlie Parker ...
Stan Getz: Legacy
by Jack Bowers
Here's a pleasant surprise: “previously unissued material" by tenor sax giant Stan Getz that by and large deserves to be more widely disseminated and heard. Legacy is comprised of five sessions spanning the years 1980-86, including three numbers with the Woody Herman Herd and another with Getz and pianist Jimmy Rowles performing Rowles' “The Peacocks." The ...
Resonance Big Band / Sammy Nestico-SWR Big Band / Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra / Alf Clausen Jazz Orchestra
by Jack Bowers
Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson Resonance Records 2009 First things first: there will never be another Oscar Peterson. Period. Even so, there are others who come remarkably close to retracing his legendary footsteps. Fellow Canadian Oliver Jones is one, Romanian-born Marian Petrescu another. It is ...
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 ...
