dont miss JL this weekend ... 25/27 2 2012

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Boyd Raeburn is on JL with Alyn is the band leader's son discussing the orchestral opus .... if you do not know this orchestra and its sound and arrangements it is one of the quietly indispensable ensembles in the history of the music absolutely unmissable ... a home for bebeop

azz Line-Up this week presents The Jim Mullen Reunion Band, a stellar cast of British jazz musicians
Jim Mullen on Guitar, Gareth Williams,Piano; Mick Hutton, Bass and Gary Husband, Drums.
As the name suggests this band is a reunion of the Quartet that was in existence for six years from 1996. Its members are amongst the most experienced jazz musicians in the country and the group developed an extremely powerful musical identity during its lifetime.

JLU

Jez Nelson presents up-and-coming UK big band Beats & Pieces. Since emerging from the Manchester student scene in 2008, the ensemble has developed a growing reputation for its fresh approach to the big-band genre. Bandleader Ben Cottrell's music embraces the influence of artists such as Radiohead and Bjork as well as British jazz from Loose Tubes to Led Bib. This gig sees them playing in front of their home crowd at the Royal Northern College of Music, as part of a tour of music from their new album.

curious to hear them ...

have a happy weekend jazbos

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks Calum.........

I wonder if any among us lot have heard any Bloyd Raeburn. I know I haven't, so this will be instructive. If I'm right, the first track selected predates "A Bird in Igor's Yard" by Diz's big band.

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

This band created quite a bit of interest on the BBC local radio's big band programme when i was small. I don't think that it was that obscure and seem to recall it being described as one of many orchestras that followed in the wake of Kenton's "Progressive jazz" recordings of that era. It is well-considered by many enthusiasts with an almost cultish following. I think the record was either prompted by an issue of an LP with radio transcriptions or by a request. By this time the big bands were on the wain and popular attention was shifting towards singers. However, I have always been surprised by the number of obscure bands that were around briefly in the mid-forties. The track you posted is fabulous and I had no idea that Raeburn featured Gillespie and Trummy Young in his band. The more for read about this band and check out the tracks on Youtube, it does seem to merit it's reputation although, like all band from that era, there is also a share of dreadful vocals which always make me cringe. Fascinating to read of some of the musicians in this band who where stalwarts in this era such as Phil Urson, the under-rated Don Lamond, Tommy Pederson, etc, etc

Here is the Wicki description of his work:-

/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd_Raeburn



Whilst Kenton was seen to be the main player amongst the white band-leaders in following a more modern agenda, there were a number of other forward looking bands at the time such as Eliot Lawrence who performed Gerry Milligan charts such as "Elevation":-

I don't think thaat Raeburn and Kenton were unique as there were a number of bands who tried to follow a modernish approach in this era. There was atleast one other big band who followed a "Progressive " agenda akin to Kenton and Raeburn but I forget the name. For me, there were three others bands which stood out. The Krupa band was sensational also also played Mulligan charts and then there was also the Claude Thornhill band who flirted with a more reflective approach in Gil Evans' score. However, I have always felt that Woody Herman's recordings from the late forties ssimply blew everyone else's works away and I don't feel are as well considered as they should be. Like Raeburn, Herman also had an interest in Stravinsky but a lot of the appeal with this bandleader stems from the fact that he was always looking for the modern and contemporary so that his last bands were recording compositions by the likes of Don Grolnick.

Curious to find this track on Youtube as well. I read somewhere that this band was quite modern but I think it was probably more to do with the leader's pioneering work with mult-tracking. This track sounds more like Bob Crosby and it is the only traack by this band I have ever heard. It was always been a favourite:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0JvzRxBFdE

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

nah not unique Ian .... quietly indispensable ensemble was my phrase of choice .... in a word unknown ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Terrific stuff on those clips, Calum and Ian.

That (?) Raeburn arrangement of "Night in Tunisia" has the same "doobie-doobie" figures as the start as subsequent Dizzy big band arrangements of the tune in the late 50s, though no longer having the recordings I don't know the arranger.

Off topic, I know, but Dizzy ends the track with that tailing off trumpet figure he used most of the time. Later he does that dramatic going high - eg G E flat B D. The first time I am aware of this is the 1953 Massey Hall concert. I wonder if there are any Dizzy anoraks out there can tell me if that is the first generally known occurrence of this.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Maybe wait for the programme...but as you will hear it was Dizzy who did Boyd's arrangement and who played on two of the three recordings the band made of it (the least successful third one had Eldridge in the starring role). I would say that having studied Dizzy's playing for my biography of him, this is one of the earliest occurrences of the figure you mention as the recording we're playing is from Jan 1945. It's also worth checking out his pre-AFM ban records with Les Hite and Lucky Millinder from 1942, but these don't quite have that Massey Hall style figure in place, and nor do his cameo appearances with Calloway from 1939-41.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and speaking of big bands

Tonight Jazz on 3 brings you twenty-first century big band music from one of Manchester’s most exhilarating outfits, Beats & Pieces, recorded in front of a raucous home crowd at the Royal Northern College of Music.
This fourteen-piece is very much a product of the Manchester youth academies, with leader Ben Cottrell having assembled his squad from the pick of the city’s current and recently-graduated music students back in 2008. There’s definitely a youthful swagger about much of the material performed tonight, especially in the two hard-hitting numbers with which the band kick off, shifting tempos and textures through rock grooves to demented jazz marches in a high-octane opening assault. Drawing breath, the ensemble next delivers a lushly-scored re-harmonisation of Nude by Radiohead, a group whose music Cottrell loves to re-imagine with this ensemble.
At halftime, I get inside Ben’s musical mind as he joins me in the studio for an mp3-player shuffle, and the tracks that surface (a Portishead classic, a film soundtrack by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker) reveal much about what he takes from outside and within the jazz idiom. We hear both influences in the second set, with the swinging counterpoint of Toan followed by the live laptop sampling used in Broken (a haunting ballad-come-pop-song) and a cover of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance.
Before all this, I begin with a pair of posthumous release; first, new material from the Esbjörn Svensson Trio – a remarkable session from 2007 - and then a selection from a new double CD from Graham Collier, the big band composer who died last year and on whose legacy Beats & Pieces and others build.

TONITE

[Serial_Apologist]

I'll have to listen to the rest of their set before deciding if this isn't the missing alternative theme title to "The Sweeney" by George Russell.

[Ian Thumwood]

Surprised no comments have appeared on this thread about JL. Played this on Listen Again and was really impressed by the records and didn't appreciate just how good this band was. It put me in mind of the kind of group Charles Ives might have assembled if he had wanted to lead a bebop big band. What I was intrigued by was that arranger George Williams when on to produce so really mainstream big band records in the 1950s that have vertually nothing to do with jazz at all - they were a favourite of Alan Dell when his BBC Radio 2 programme was something I checked out as a teenager in the hope that he would feature bands such as Chick Webb and Andy Kirk. I think William's scores were clever but in the way that Bill Finigan's scores were intelligent although a bit kitsch by today's standards.

The interview seemed to reinforce my perception that the so-called "Progressive" big bands arrived at a more modern approach to music from an entirely different root to the be-boppers. I can see why the ever-curious Dizzy Gillespie might have been an enthusiastic advocate and recall he was also writing charts like "Down under" for Woody Herman's final band before he established the First Herd. All in all, a fascinating account of one of the by-ways of jazz that seriously deserved wider appreciation.