I am a fortunate man; I was an active participant first as a fan, then as a writer, editor and later a record producer while the glory days of the big bands were still with us, and I got to hear them all, some of them many, many times. Ellington, Basie, Herman, Kenton, Lunceford, Shaw, Goodman and on and on. There was nothing like it.
I once wrote a booklet for one of the Franklin Mint Record Society history of jazz volumes that was devoted to the bands of Basie, Herman and Kenton. A portion of the introductory paragraphs went like this, and I hope you won't mind my repeating them:
Those who may not have experienced the electrifying shock of hearing a great jazz band up close are to be pitied. Concert halls are fine, and jazz festivals blast throngs of listeners with huge sound systems, but unless you've had your head in the lion's mouth at a Blue Note, a Birdland or a Crescendo you don't know what it was really like to physically FEEL the energy being generated and to be absorbed right into that sound.
On a good night the band would come at you in waves, and you couldn't do much but sit there helplessly. You knew you were being had, and you knew you were being stripped of all propriety, but you didn't care. There was a joy unmatched, and somehow you had shared something deep and unspoken with those men on the bandstand that you'd never forget. It was thrilling, and if it has never happened to you, I'm sorry.
Basie and Herman and Kenton provided many nights like that for uncounted thousands of people, and even though the voices grow fainter through attrition, if you listen closely you can hear an echo of the cry, "Bring back the big bands!"
As we knew them, they are not coming back, not ever. They are a vanishing breed, like condors or orangutans.
But neither will they ever be totally dead, not so long as there is a leader with the courage to form one, knowing full well the rewards will be small, and so long as there are still some hearts around that beat a little faster (in 4/4, of course) to five trumpets, four trombones, five saxes and four rhythm.
Jack Tracy