 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ray Swing
Date: 1999-03-05 13:25
What suggestions do any of you have to update my Big Band to bring it into 1999 & 2000? I'm told by a couple of younger members that the 40's Swing (Shaw, Goodman, Dorseys, Basie, James, Ellington and yes, Severinson) is Passe. What do some of you younger types like these days? Please no Rock. Rick 2, any suggestions?
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Author: Mario
Date: 1999-03-05 13:48
Hum! TO say that the swing Big Band are "passe" is interesting. It is part of our musical heritage in the same way classical music of the 19th Century is. Understand swing properly in the context of a swing band is part of the learning.
As well, listent so swing era music played today (live) or recorded properly. You will be amazed by who sophisticated and interesting this music can be. What makes it sound "passe" are the limitations of the technology used for recording.
At any rate, there are many exception big band today. My favorite one: Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass (Toronto). I am sure this thred will have many others.
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Author: herb
Date: 1999-03-05 14:27
Bob Florence and Mat Catingub, to name two more creative big band arrangers; as well as charts written for the Buddy Rich band. These can be high-energy performance charts, not necessarily aimed toward the new wave of swing dance music (Royal Crown Revue, Bigbaddaddyvoodoo, etc).
Check out www.marinamusic.com as a source for charts (competative prices and good return policy). Also look for charts of updated "standards" by Dave Wolpe, Mark Taylor, Lenny Niehaus, and of course Sammy Nestico
Review the goals of your big band: Performance/concert; dance band; wedding band; 40's cover; all the above?; and the members' technical capabilities and desire for challenge. From that, decide what kind of book you need. Cheers.
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Author: Larry
Date: 1999-03-05 14:39
Check out The Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra, http://studio8h.com/swingorch/index.html
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Author: Rick2
Date: 1999-03-05 14:47
Well, Ray,
I'm not so sure how much help I can be to you. I don't follow the neo-swing fad that's out right now. You might want to go listen to groups like Squirrel Nut Zippers, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, and that bunch taht played at the superbowl (somebody help me with their name). Those are the groupe that I happened to pick up on the names. The only one I have any albums by are Squirrel Nut Zippers and there's something about them that I don't care for. Like I said, I don't really follow those guys, and I've been out of school long enough that I'm 15-20 years older than the kids listening to whatever's popular now.
Were it me in your place, I think I would try to add some different instruments into the mix. I think they use an electric guitar and probably synthesisers. You'll probably want to arrange some pieces that haven't been done by big bands.
Actually, judging from the response to an earlier thread, there are plenty of high-school aged kids on this board, maybe they can help you out a bit better than I can.
Sorry I couldn't have been more help, but my musical tastes are passe, just like yours.
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Author: paul
Date: 1999-03-05 18:21
"Classic" Big Band music is technically challenging to say the least, and seems to be coming back into popularity now that many of the baby boomers are reaching their 50s. Eddie Daniels plays this music to rave reviews with folks who attend in mink coats and drive luxury cars.
Ray, I've heard of the Big Band style coming back to some extent. See the previous postings above to contemporary bands that are trying to make it big in the market today. Perhaps the reason why Big Band is reviving is because it's the music of today's x generation folks' grandfathers. Perhaps today's younger folks are beginning to truly understand the impact that Big Band had on our culture. Perhaps they are beginning to feel the zip and life in the music. Perhaps they are playing it for its technical merit. Whatever the reason, I personally think it's great to see this music coming back. Perhaps the clarinet will again become as popular as it once was when Big Band was king.
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Author: Robin
Date: 1999-03-05 19:35
The group that played during the Superbowl halftime show is Big Bad Voodoo Daddies, one of my favorite "neo swing" bands.
Rick, I like the Squirrel Nut Zippers, but not as a swing band (which they've said in interviews they don't really consider themselves to be; they're a slightly different retro hybrid). Cherry Poppin' Daddies and the Brian Setzer Orchestra are a couple of other bands that, I think, do a great job with swing music. It's not really the addition of electric guitars or synthesizers that gives them their sound (and the guitar Brian Setzer plays on, btw, is a very retro, very big hollow body archtop jazz guitar--something quite in keeping with the traditional sound). Rather, from what I've read and from my own experience with various genres, it's the edge to their music that makes it sound a little different from Miller or Goodman. There's nothing new about that edge, though--that raw sound is straight out of the juke joints that were more popular with black music fans than white. Man, how I love that musical melting pot. ;-)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-03-05 20:11
Ray,
If you've got a good trumpet player then some charts from <b>Chase</b> with Bill Chase would be a good start (most younger people haven't heard that mixture of jazz/rock). Or charts from <b>Spyrogyra</b> - danceable cool jazz. this stuff was real popular in the mid/late 70s but hasn't been heard a lot since then (along with some of the jazzier <b>BS & T</b> and <b>Chicago</b>)
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Author: MartyM
Date: 1999-03-06 03:39
I have a 12 piece big band. Look at the Hal Leonard pubishers book. The are coming out with brian setzer arrangements....now have "jump,jive an wail"
also "zoot suit riot" both crowd pleasers. Also they have many other good arrangers on staff. ie wolpe,holms ect.
hope it helps,we do play all the 40's stuff too....but
lets be flexible too.
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Author: Rick2
Date: 1999-03-06 04:18
Actually, I think this neo-swing fad is the best thing to happen to jazz since Elvis killed it in the fifties. I think it's starting to bring jazz back into the mainstream. For about 2 years now the swing sound has been coming back. Last year the commercials on TV were starting to play swing in the background. Today we're starting to hear dixieland in the background. Dixieland is where the clarinet dominates--clarinet puts every other instrument to shame in dixieland, so I think we'll all be getting our wish.
Regarding why it's getting popular, I beg to differ. The "x-generation" likes it, the WWII generation likes it, but those in between, swing is what their parents listened to, and we can't listen to what our parents like, can we? But if the baby boomer parents like it, then the baby boomer's kids will figure out that the baby boomers don't like it and play it because they dont like it. The kids discover it really is good music and behold, it's the next craze. Bonding between the kids and their grandparents.
We can only hope that today's toddlers discover MOZART and Tschaikovsky because their rap-music-listening-parents HATE it!!!! Please please please!
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Author: paul
Date: 1999-03-06 13:43
Spyrogyra produces an album a year. I believe their style of music is called fusion jazz. They have been on the concert circuit every year, too. You would be surprised that a lot of the contemporary "elevator music" is really a cut from a Spyrogyra album. This isn't a slam on the group or their music. Rather, it's a testament to its popularity and public acceptance.
I've seen Jay Beckenstein in live concert several times playing (as I recall) Keilwerth saxes in soprano and alto. If only I could play as smoothly and as technically proficient as him. Just keep in mind he's been at this very high level of professional playing since at least the early 1970s.
Does anyone know of a contemporary artist that plays the clarinet in this type of music? If so, please name drop the artist's name and a few of his/her recordings. It would be great to have a role model.
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Author: Rick2
Date: 1999-03-06 16:26
Paul,
I think you've found a vacuum. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I suspect that there simply isn't anybody playing clarinet in that type of music. I know there are a handful of jazz clarinetists active right now, but from the samples I've heard, they seem to stay away from both fusion and from bebop.
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Author: S.W. Franklin
Date: 1999-03-06 18:21
I found reading the comments on the big band updating very interesting because I am one of those grandfathers who still enjoy listening to Goodman's "Sing,Sing,Sing" or Dorsey's "Opus One" and many other recordings from the big band era. I'm only sorry that the recording technology in use today was not available to really preserve the "sounds" of the many great instrumentalists of that era. I note the use of the term "jazz" is used to describe many of the sounds of that era. I have a lot of literature and sheet music dating back to the very early forties. I came across an article in a publication put out by RCA called "His Master's Voice" dated July 1942. I quote "Today's popular music was born at the beginning of the Swing Era in 1935. The word "jazz" describes its ancesters. Thewords "icky", "alligator" and "hepcat" were amoung the first utterances of this new baby. The baby is now seven years old - grammer school age. As with all baby talk, its first words are now outdated. The technical phrases of the men who play it - the musicians - now comprise a new form of American slang. Collected here, these words form a new First Primer for the baby's vast army of fans - described by His Master's Voice . . . music's greatest voice . . . on Victor and Bluebird Records." The article goes on to describe "What Makes A Band" including the instruments, and how the various sections are formed within the band, Etc. Some of the headlines on the first page are "Tom Dorsey Gets First Band Film In Technicolor", "Miller Got Jammed Up", and "Kaye Signs Girl Singer". I attend as many of the "Big Band" concerts, most recently a performance by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra and the Pied Pipers. A musician by the name of Jeff Collins was featured in the Jimmy Dorsey role. His renditions of Jimmy's solos in "Contrasts" and "So Rare" are truly amazing. You would almost believe you were listening to Jimmy Dorsey himself on both the alto sax and clarinet. Thanks for allowing me to recall the early days of swing which is part of our musical heritage.
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Author: Meredith
Date: 1999-03-06 21:36
As a teen, lemme say what we like...Brian Setzer Orchestra, Cherry Poppin Daddies, and the Big Bad Voodoo daddies...a big group of my friends and I are learning how to swing dance...it is so much fun and it is cool to hear real musicians on our rock radio station..we are used to hearing people who can't even sing and now we get the awesome brass....
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Author: Ray Swing
Date: 1999-03-09 16:13
Thanks to all for your responses. The combinations of suggestions have given me a fine list of musical groups to review.
I have heard some Brian Setzer records and like the music when he isn’t singing all the time (I’m one of those who believe singers should sing Ballads). I will pick up a couple of the records by the groups suggested and hope I will like what I hear.
After re-reading my post, I believe I should clarify a couple of items. I play lead Alto and Clarinet in an amateur, Community Big Band. It is not “My” band, which in reading my post may have given that impression. Our Leader is an excellent Jazz trumpeter/ Instructor. The personnel (15) range from Sr. H.S. to Retirees, and all we lack is a Guitar and a Girl singer. Some of our younger members (17-25) want us to get into some more modern swing numbers. And since I am of the old swing set (I believe no swing number will ever top TD’s “Well Get It” with Ziggy and Chuck), I need to get up to speed with the “New Swing”. Thanks you all again!!
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