National Youth Jazz Orchestra on BBC4 TV

[Guest]

Their proms gig is on TV at 7.30 today (Friday 17th):

Mark Armstrong conducts the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, featuring Britain's best young jazz musicians in a wide-ranging set of jazz favourites. The programme includes Duke Ellington's The Queen's Suite to mark the Diamond Jubilee year and a new commission by saxophonist Tim Garland.

ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lygs2

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thanks for the pointer byas'd ... let's keep it up da bored a while eh!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

an excellent concert i urge boredees to catch it on iplayer etc

the NYJO gives several ensembles of older types a good run for their money; great ensemble work, swinging, intelligent and interesting soloists, classic arrangements ... a really good band in short and on fine form ... did not need the Tim Garland concession at the end ...this version of NYJO really holds it own in elite company

[Ariosto]

I'm sorry to say I found their playing OK but uninteresting, as it was nice rather than good. It realy failed to swing and I found the soloing bland and the arrangements all sounded similar - or at least the ones I heard. (I switched off after aout 20 minutes). They were playing a bit like students (which they were) and worse, too much like classical music students.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...have you ever heard the bbc big band ariosto? chacun a son etc .....

[Old Grumpy]

Just watching this now on i-player. Really enjoying it - thanks Byas'd

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm sorry to say I found their playing OK but uninteresting, as it was nice rather than good. It realy failed to swing and I found the soloing bland and the arrangements all sounded similar - or at least the ones I heard. (I switched off after aout 20 minutes). They were playing a bit like students (which they were) and worse, too much like classical music students.

Largely my view too, Ariosto.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?5174-Prom-38-(10-8-12)-National-Youth-Jazz-Orchestra

[Ian Thumwood]

I didn't realise that this concert was on the TV although I did watch Marin Alsopp last night with the Sao Paulo SO which was brailliant.

In the last 11 years I must have seen 30-40 college big bands. The situation in the UK is intriguing as a big band jazz tradition outside of NYJO and Doncaster has probably only existed within the last ten years. For me, I have seen some groups like the band that came from Exeter University which are ery much an exception to the rule play original charts and sound like no one else (70's fusion type of sound ) but some of the youth bands in this country are "enthusiastic" at best.

On another post about Newport Jazz Festival, SA made a comment about British musicians not being included in the roster (despite the fact that there were Canadians, Brazilians and Israeli's in the publicity info that Caulm posted) but whilst there are musicians in the UK who are World Class (as well as Brits in the States like Dave Holland and John Escreet who are exceptional) the big band situation to me just seems a reflection of the mediocrity of jazz in this country. Catch the better American college bands and they would roast NYJCO and probably play a more "jazz centred" repertoire that might take in Thad Jones, Ellington, Basie, Schnieder, , Gillespie, Bob Florence, etc. Compare this with the "happy clappy" sub-Ellington of someone like the late Michael Garrick and you can see that things are pretty wrong in the UK.

With regard to swing, bands like Standford Uni, Texa One O' Clock Lab band , etc which are filled with teenagers and twenty-somethings and they are as good as the the best pro bands in the UK. Small wonder that players like Chris Potter emerge from this kind of set up.

More concerning for the UK is that whilst the youth big band scene is probably the best it has ever been, the French have quickly surpassed us and have embraced the jazz culture in their schools in a way that we have not. Although I am sure that SA doesn't share my passion for big band jazz, I can appreciate his comments but if we accept the likes of worth but ordinary Michael Garrick's music as a model as opposed to perhaps something original like Loose Tubes or, conversely Tunny Hayes' big band which felt like an American group, that is the say forward. British big band writing is often too whimsical or pastoral amd frequently much too polite. No surprise for me that the NYJO come in for criticism from fans albeit the British jazz scene was be destroyed with out it. Personally, in the UK scene it does an excellent job at what it is supposed to do - if there is a fault, it is the lack of a historic jazz culture in the UK where the music has always struggled to be accepted by btht eh establishment and the general music fan. Bascially, we get what we deserve.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Bascially, we get what we deserve.

er we do but leave me out ....

i would like to hear the present NYJO in concert alongside some of the college bands from the USA .... i think this lot are pretty good ... nothing whimsical or pastoral in their repertoire and some cool soloing too ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...and John Fordham liked them too ...

[Serial_Apologist]

...and John Fordham liked them too ...

"Almost languidly trenchant improvisation" eh? Ahem.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

"Almost languidly trenchant improvisation"

what a pseudipus!

[Serial_Apologist]

what a pseudipus!

Mind, I think he was half right with the languidly bit - or a third, or something...