Jumpin’ Blues / Greensleeves – Kenny Burrell

by | Aug 7, 2020 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet

Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Smith were a “dynamic duo” on many jazz recordings throughout the years, mostly albums headlined by Jimmy.  Jumpin’ Blues, recorded at NYC Town Hall in February of 1985, can be found on Smith’s blockbuster album Midnight Special.  It features Kenny Burrell on guitar, Jimmy Smith playing  the Hammond B-3, Grady Tate on drums and adds Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax to add yet another dimension to the already potent trio.

Greensleeves was recorded 20 years earlier in 1965 and netted Gil Evans a Grammy Award nomination in 1966 for Best Instrumental Arrangement.  The album itself was nominated for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance.  Burrell is on guitar, with Roger Kellaway on piano, Grady Tate at the drums, Willie Rodriguez on conga and Joe Benjamin playing double bass.  The tune starts out like a lamb, as you would expect, and morphs into a very swinging lion before all is said and done!

 

Greensleeves

by Kenny Burrell | Guitar Forms

Take The ‘A’ Train / Rosetta – Roy Eldridge

by | Jun 20, 2020 | Big Band

Take The ‘A’ Train to Jazz At The Philharmonic in Paris.  The year was 1960 and Roy Eldridge was featured with all stars like Benny Carter, Don Byas, Coleman Hawkins and Jo Jones, among others from the ‘who’s who’ of jazz.  An historic performance of the Ellington tune!

An Eldridge original, Rosetta, was performed just 5 years later in Paris at the Jazz festival à la Mutualité with notables such as Earl Hines, Stuff Smith, Ben Webster, Don Byas and Kenny Clarke, to name just a few of the all-stars on hand.

D-Day – Danny Boy

by | Jun 5, 2020 | Big Band, Video

On June 6th 1944, 76 years ago, a bunch of mostly American and Brit kids saved the world from Nazism and preserved the freedom we, now, seem so ready to relinquish. Danny Boy seemed the right mood and Glenn Miller the right orchestra for a salute to all those heroic members of The Greatest Generation who so willingly made the ultimate sacrifice for liberty and justice for all.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra Scandinavia

by | May 9, 2020 | Big Band, Vocal Group

The Glenn Miller Orchestra Scandinavia, based in Stockholm Sweden, began operations July 1st 2010 with permission and authorization from Glenn Miller Productions in New York.  The band is led by Jan Slottenäs and, arguably, offers the finest reproduction of the original Glenn Miller sound anywhere.

Moonlight Serenade (The video above) became Glenn Miller’s signature song … opening and closing each performance of the band.  Below, Perfidia (Spanish for “perfidy”, meaning faithlessness, treachery or betrayal) is a throwback to the 1940s, replete with a vocal group that does The Modernaires proud.  In The Mood (Just below that) is a familiar tune for anyone who has ever seen a World War II movie!  While a frequently requested dance number for the Miller Band, it became closely associated with the war and the 40s era itself.    GMO Scandinavia primarily performs in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.  These videos were recorded at the Vasterås Concert Hall in Sweden, during 2015.

Night Life / Ol’ Man River – Maynard Ferguson

by | Mar 20, 2020 | Audio, Big Band

Maynard Ferguson was the poster boy for musical evolution … from playing high notes that only dogs could hear with the Kenton Orchestra to his own big bands in the fifties and sixties, to popular tunes and disco stylings during the 1970s and beyond.  Beneath it all was always a foundation of solid jazz but my favorite period was the Ferguson orchestra between 1959 and approximately 1965, featuring Willie Maiden with his untamed tenor solos and unusually creative arrangements that fit Maynard’s powerful ensemble to a tee!  Then there were the compositions and occasional injection of Slide Hampton’s talents on the tuba and flugelhorn, along with his renowned prowess with the trombone.  Rufus “Speedy” Jones on drums rounded out the band’s driving sound, as he did in the latter half of the decade with the Basie and Ellington orchestras.

Night Life

by Maynard Ferguson | A Message From Birdland

Night Life is a low key Slide Hampton arrangement that features a more mellow Maynard on the uncommon valve trombone rather than playing dog-whistle notes on his trumpet.  A Message From Birdland was the second jazz album I ever bought and the one that got me hooked on Ferguson big bands for life.  Ol’ Man River is an arrangement that I suspect would make Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein proud.  They would most certainly take notice right from the solo baritone sax lead-in by Frank Hittner.  As the tune rolls on, you can almost hear the paddle wheel churning up the water!

Ol' Man River

by Maynard Ferguson | Newport Suite

Trumpet Summit – Bobby Shew & Company

by | Feb 14, 2020 | Big Band, Orchestral

Thad Jones’ composition Three and One was recorded by The Czech National Symphony Orchestra as part of its “Trumpet Summit” program, with the St. Blaise’s Bigband.  Featured soloists were Bobby Shew, Randy Brecker and Jan Hasenöhrl, as brass and reeds shook the usually classical foundations of the historic Municipal House in Prague.  You might think of them as “The Three Tenors” of jazz … with trumpets!

Winter Wonderland / My Favorite Things – Tony Bennett

by | Dec 13, 2019 | Big Band, Vocal

Tony Bennett makes you want to slip on your galoshes and follow him into the snow with this rendition of Winter Wonderland.  It features the Count Basie Orchestra and is certain to add Holiday spring to anyone’s step!

My Favorite Things is a classic song swung by a classic performer with a classic band.  While the tune was written for a Broadway play, not as a Christmas song, the season wouldn’t be complete without it.

Angels / I Remember Clifford – Roy Hargrove

by | Oct 11, 2019 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet

Roy Hargrove is known as one of the top trumpet players in jazz for the past quarter-century.  As an incisive trumpeter, doubling on flugelhorn, Roy was discovered by Wynton Marsalis in the 1980s.  He embodied the brightest promise of his jazz generation, both as a young steward of the hard bop tradition and a savvy bridge to both hip-hop and R&B.  His assertive sound embodied a tone that could evoke either burnished steel or a soft, golden glow.  Here we have both.

 

Angels (Above), features the quintet with Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Justin Robinson on alto sax,  Tadataka Unno playing piano,  Ameen Saleem on bass, and Quincy Phillips playing drums.

I Remember Clifford (Below) displays Hargrove’s softer side, with the flugelhorn as a contrast to his big band backing.

June Christy and Friends

by | Sep 19, 2019 | Big Band, Vocal

How High The Moon is the top video in more than one way.  Besides the fabulous June Christy doing the vocal, two other legendary singers don’t utter a solitary note!  Instead, Mel Torme is on drums and Nat ‘King’ Cole plays piano, which of course was his original musical calling.  Lower left is June in her prime with That Old Feeling and on the lower right she is featured with the Stan Kenton Orchestra Just A-Sittin’ And A-Rockin’.  Christy, of course, was the replacement chanteuse for the incredible Anita O’Day after she left the Kenton band … one of the few singers who could have filled O’Day’s stylish ‘pumps’ fronting that powerful, creative Orchestra.

Movin’ Wess

by | Sep 13, 2019 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet

While most often listed as a saxophonist, I prefer the sound of Frank Wess on the flute. Though the tune is nameless, Flauta Jazz uses the same chords as Ellington/Strayhorn Take The ‘A’ Train.  Sound Familiar?

The Very Thought Of You is a jazz and pop standard, first recorded and published in 1934 with music and lyrics by Ray Noble. Frank Wess applies his own magic touch along with big band backing.