JSngry

I very much do NOT like the Nyman piece, but the rest is a quite nice listen,

Steve Gadd's all tatted up?

If it was perfect, there would be no sense in doing it again. I do think there can be a "perfect solo" but big deal. you won't get paid for being perfect, you'll get paid to keep playing. If that. Besides, there's always better, eventually, or at leat different. And with different comes the new goals and practices. Perfect isn't built to survive in the real world, perfect is built to just stand there and be admired or scorned, to be a motivation for new creation or new destruction. Perfect is not about "becoming" perfact has become. There's no existential motion in "perfect" But then tere's Bach. And Bird. And so forth. So really, this is a bunch of yingyangyakadoofdle talk.

Maybe, I'm not sure. But those mostly aren't student bands. they're organized big bands that play god knows where. The biggest change in the idiom is that it's no longer primarily and ongoing occupation. It's something that people do because they did in high school and maybe college, and now they want to keep playing in a big band. It's almost like a softball league.

They never left, they just reached, what do they call it, there maximum potential in a time that more or less passed them by. Show rooms - we had a Fairmont hotel in Dallas. The Venetian Room, and like all such places, they brought in name acts like Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, act of the ilk, and they al had shows, they all had books, and they all used big bands, until the oil crisis and other such economic disruptions hit all aspects of the entertainment economy. Same thing for stuff like Ice Capades and Disney On Ice, and all that, rodeos even, those used to be gigs for live musicians. Readers and section players, big band or rodeo band, ggs. Not now. Music schools turning out more players than there could possibly be work for, all sorts of local rehearsal bands spring up, some with their own books, many without, but all of them big bands, playing once a week at some public venue or private location. And Seabreeze records was there for them: https://www.discogs.com/label/317957-Sea-Breeze-Records?sort=year&sort_order=desc But there's not enough gigs for all these people, there wasn't then and there damn sure isn't now. Between economy and technology, the big bands never went away, they just moved to a different country, and then died a natural death, except for the few who died but are kept alive as ghosts. And there are ghosts!!!, Glenn Miller got gigs: https://glennmillerorchestra.com/ Tommy Dorsey still will book a gig: https://www.buddymorrowproductions.com/index.html as will as Artie Shaw: https://www.artieshaworchestra.com/home Basie got gigs booked: https://www.thecountbasieorchestra.com/ Buddy Rich got gigs: https://thebuddyrichband.com/upcoming-gigs Looks like you can still hire Woody Herman, maybe: https://inter-jazz.com/web/artists/the-woody-herman-orchestra/ Mike Vax has a bunch of bands for hire, including Stan Kenton: https://www.mikevaxmusic.com/sklo/ and of course, what Thad & Mel, then just Mel, and now, whoever it is (Jim McNeely?) , they're still there: https://www.vanguardjazzorchestra.com/ The church we went to for a while had a "jazz band". Of course. They had charts, so there's a market. And if you wand a Don Ellis band, here's your book. Of course you gotta pay: https://www.uncjazzpress.com/category-s/161.htm and Gil Evans can definitely be had: https://www.gilevansproject.com/ And oh yeah - The Texas Instruments (yeah, the people who make the calculators:) Jazz Band: Now the Texins Jazz band and hell yeah, they got gigs: https://texinsjazz.com/index.html The group formed in the summer of 1986, sparked by an ad placed in a TI company newspaper. The band quickly reached a sustainable level and has remained active since its inception. Almost everyone played in high school and/or college and is glad to have an outlet to continue to study and play jazz. The band rehearses every Tuesday night at Richland College in Dallas, Texas. The concerts are normally geared more toward performance type events rather than dance band jobs, but the group can cover many types of events.

I used the fitting guide and it told me to go for a 3X if I wanted a looser fit.

And now, laptops and tablets Hell, cats have fakebooks on their phones now

https://www.musicity.com/big-band-jazz-music-stand-5-stands-with-case-swing-it

Look at Maynard Ferguson for an example of how the whole thing evolved. Fist a star with Kenton, then leader of a band that evolved into a real working unit that was arguably at it's zenith when Maynard folded it for personal and financial reasons ca. 1965-66, after which he went to India and blissed out. When he returned it was to England, where he put together a really nice UK band that made its way over here and got popular. And then, he wanted to get bigger, changed his musical direction, had a few genuine "hits" which kept him as a viable +enough) commercial attraction, even as his road bands got smaller and smaller. He never did not play the hits, but it seems like he always had a band and a tour for them (as opposed to non-stop work, another chance in the business) He kept going in some form or fashion until 2006.

One more thing - a lot of people liked it, both to listen to and to play it. It's a collective effort and a communal experience, at least when done right. I never saw it at an overt level except from that one equipment vendor, but it had long been a standing joke(?) in the business since... they went away. And once they actually showed a bit of a resurgence in interest, I have no doubt that any booking agent and talent manager worth their salt did not have the phrase at the ready, whether the act actually was or was not relevant to the implied nostalgia in play.

Critical mass. The younger listening base had grow, the Top 40 horn bands were popular, the repertoire got updated, existing leaders, new leaders, enough older fans of the idiom we're still out there, all that came together and created a nice window of 20 or so years. And then people died. Ghost bands are always a tough proposition, especially ones that don't want to deal strictly in nostalgia. Also, electronics. There was a period where Weather Report was essentially a big band in terms of what was going on in the music But yeah, in 1970, all these people were alive and had viable bands (or were about to): Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Jones/Lewis, Maynard Ferguson, Don Ellis, Gil Evans...who else? By 1990, only Maynard and Mel Lewis (barely) were alive, and newcomer Toshiko Akioshi had moved to New York and only sometimes had a band. Same as anything else - death, economics, and evolution. But there were also good bands like Harry James and Les Brown that were in the idiom's ecosystem. In fact, it was Harry James who backed Buddy Rich's band. It took money to keep a band going, not just for players, but for arrangers and their copyists, uniforms, transportation, you name it, money. It wasn't for nothing that Boosey & Hawkes(?) was fanning the fire of the "big bands are back" movement, because whatever equipment you need for a band, fronts, lights, mutes, stands, cases, whatever, the had it for sale all day long.

And then there was Gil Evans...

They worked around L. A., clubs and such. Not a road band, but they worked.

Jazz education began to reap dividends in terms of younger audiences and potential players. Working bands still played dances. Horn bands. Working bands could begin to get clinic gigs. Kenton almost lived on that shit, but still played dances and concerts. Buddy Rich could rely on his contacts to always get gigs that always paid. "Swing Bands" never really "came back", but there's still gigs for the ghost bands. Still. "Big Bands" never really went away because it's a thing unto itself, section, ensemble, writing and playing charts. And for a quick minute in 1966, Pacific Jazz had three big bands under contract - Gerald Wilson, Don Ellis, and Buddy Rich. Also note that Woody Herman was pretty popular in the early 1960s, had a great modern band, check out the Mosaic Select, then transitioned into a sort of soul/rock bag with varying degrees of results, and then had another resurgence in the early-mid 1970s with his Fantasy records. There's a lot of histories and currents at play within this idiom, and if you can still find a real big band, it's still quite the treat. Good luck on that one, though. It's a different time and the dance feel has been bred out of too many player.

I know there was a live gig taped for PBS, and I'm thinking it was done in Rochester, does that sound right to you, Peter?

Mario Rivera is always come to play

There's that quartet record on Artists House that is a pure, unfettered delight. Thad, Mel, Danko, and Rufus Reid? Maybe it was originally on Horizon, but AH released an expanded edition.

I love the first three, one is studio, the next two are live. And then, from 1977, Live in Munich. In between is all good, although the studio albums on Horizon will be the last ones I reach for, and will maybe even put them back if I do. Also, if I'm honest, everything before Consummation is OK with me, and that one is ok. And uh-oh, what's this, please?

This one was in the book with the title "Orgasm".

Willie Maiden!

The Clapper In All Of Us - An All-Star Tribute To Lisa Bell Produced by Honzie Wiltion, with a knockout performance of "You Gonna Get Wet When You Jump In The River" bt Lady Linda Bell.

Up, checking him out from his many(!) Carla Bley records and realizing what a gas it must have been to have him on your gig. Business was always handled and handled with joy.