Picking up on the link Calum post from the Guardian I was saddened to hear of the passing of one of my heroes, the brilliant arranger and bandleader, George Gruntz.
I had never heard of him until a local record shop proprietor gave me an ECM catalogue which featured details of Gruntz's album "Theatre" - I later acquired a copy of this from Mole JAzz which revealed it to be an idiosyncratic Gil Evans' inspired big band featuring a number of Free-ish Europeans and more "mainstream" Americans such as Mark Egan , Davbe Bargeron and the singer Sheila Jordan. This record was sensational, (especially "El Chancho" ) and I was on a quest to snap up as many of his records as possible., I've quite a few in my collection but I never got to see his perform live with his star-studded aggregations.
From the early days of big band writing, certain arrangers acquire reputations for their writing with the likes of Benny Carter being celebrated for his scoring for saxophones. For me, no one arranged for trombones / sousaphones likes Gruntz and combined with the use of reeds, his writing had a ricjness and depth about it that marked his out amongst his contemporaries. He also had a great sense of humour and was not afraid to incorporate arabic or Russina influence in his scores which frequently were of compositions by band members. Tracks like "Mexacali pose" became contemporary big band classic.
The roster of musicians who passed through his ranks was incredible. Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson, Kenny Wheeler, Alex Sipiagin, Django Bates, Donny McCaslin, Ray Anderson (who made a superb record with Gruntz's big band in the early 1990s), Dave Leibman, Tim Berne, Chris Hunter and Luis Bonilla have all plated in his band. Here is a clip of the band is concert - also playing "Mexacali Pose" for the brilliant album "Merryteria."
I'm saddened to hear of his passing as Goerge Gruntz was a composer who made the world better with his hard swinging and always entertaining music. As far as I am concerned, he was one of the greatest bandleaders post-war and one of my heroes. The greatest Swiss since William Tell.
I had never heard of him until a local record shop proprietor gave me an ECM catalogue which featured details of Gruntz's album "Theatre" - I later acquired a copy of this from Mole JAzz which revealed it to be an idiosyncratic Gil Evans' inspired big band featuring a number of Free-ish Europeans and more "mainstream" Americans such as Mark Egan , Davbe Bargeron and the singer Sheila Jordan. This record was sensational, (especially "El Chancho" ) and I was on a quest to snap up as many of his records as possible., I've quite a few in my collection but I never got to see his perform live with his star-studded aggregations.
From the early days of big band writing, certain arrangers acquire reputations for their writing with the likes of Benny Carter being celebrated for his scoring for saxophones. For me, no one arranged for trombones / sousaphones likes Gruntz and combined with the use of reeds, his writing had a ricjness and depth about it that marked his out amongst his contemporaries. He also had a great sense of humour and was not afraid to incorporate arabic or Russina influence in his scores which frequently were of compositions by band members. Tracks like "Mexacali pose" became contemporary big band classic.
The roster of musicians who passed through his ranks was incredible. Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson, Kenny Wheeler, Alex Sipiagin, Django Bates, Donny McCaslin, Ray Anderson (who made a superb record with Gruntz's big band in the early 1990s), Dave Leibman, Tim Berne, Chris Hunter and Luis Bonilla have all plated in his band. Here is a clip of the band is concert - also playing "Mexacali Pose" for the brilliant album "Merryteria."
I'm saddened to hear of his passing as Goerge Gruntz was a composer who made the world better with his hard swinging and always entertaining music. As far as I am concerned, he was one of the greatest bandleaders post-war and one of my heroes. The greatest Swiss since William Tell.
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