Big Band Appreciation Thread

[Vibroluxer]

Glenn Miller - In The Mood


Frank and Duke


Andrew Sisters

 

[cyclopean]

like poison idea?

 

[Dukex]

 

[Dukex]

 

[Dukex]

 

[Nahtabot]

This thread has potential.

 

[elihu]

what the heck...

 

[W.L.Weller]

Please don't listen to this stuff (or anything musical) on laptop/phone speakers. Honestly, figure out a way to plug your computer into whatever guitar amp is closest to you and it'll sound a hundred times better. These were all recorded in mono and the bandpass filtering necessary to keep the needle in the grooves means that your guitar amp will do a completely serviceable, musical job of reproducing this stuff.

I'm typing all of this because I'm at work and listening to this on miserable computer speakers and feeling completely robbed of the vitality of this track and specifically Chu Berry's tenor sax solo. I should commit to transcribing it for guitar and learning it, it's an all-timer. If copping lines from horn players was good enough for Grant Green, it's more than good enough for me.

 

[Dostradamas]

 

[W.L.Weller]

This passage excerpted from "Three Chords for Beauty's Sake, The Life of Artie Shaw," a book by Tom Nolan

<<Then without warning came the sort of magical live set Shaw had experienced once or twice before with his 1938 band. This 1941 orchestra’s unforgettable night took place in the Midwest. Ray Conniff remembered, "I think it was Kansas. . . .The places we used to play sometimes - they were Quonset-huts, these metal barracks-type things. . . .The temperature in the day in the sun must have been up to one fifteen or one twenty. . . .And you can imagine this metal barracks at eight p.m. when we were going to start; it was like a furnace in there. It was absolutely stifling - and the place was packed. The temperature was so high that all the brass instruments were sharp because of the change in the size of the metal; we couldn’t get tuned to the piano. Artie didn’t even come up on the stand; he was down in the dressing-room somewhere in the basement."

Shaw thought Conniff’s "Just Foolin’ Around" was the number the band was into when the magic struck. As Conniff recalled,

"Hot Lips Page was the first to play a solo. I don’t know what happened, but something he played just suddenly inspired the whole band. . . .It was an electrifying thing: The band started to swing like I’ve never heard a band swing before or since. The people all stopped dancing and got as close to the stands as they could. As each guy played, he just played way over his head. I remember when I played it was like I wasn’t moving the [trombone] slide myself; everything went automatically by itself.

"Artie . . .grabbed his clarinet and came up on the stand and joined in. When we got to the end of the arrangement- he gave the signal with one finger up, and we all went back to the top again; we didn’t even stop. We just went back to the top of the whole arrangement and played it down through again; we all played solos again. That was one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had in my entire life in the music-business."

"Hot Lips Page was playing," Art said in awe, over sixty years later, "and the band caught fire. The god-damn thing- Suddenly, there was a thing in the air. this band was blowing up a storm. The tempo, and the time- everything just came together. We all stared at each other. What’s happening?

"Many many years later -only recently- Ray said, "You remember that night?’ I said, ‘I know exactly the night you’re talking about. Low ceiling-’ He said, ‘That’s right. Hot Lips was playing-’ And the band-went crazy. Everyone! Everybody- staring at each other. . . .That’s somethin’ you never get over," Shaw said at ninety-three.>>



[unfortunately not a tape of the actual performance described above]

 

[Dostradamas]

 

[kLyon]

My first job was playing bass in the Phil Nixon Orchestra at a Hilton in Port St. Lucie, Florida. I learned how to read music by listening to the piano player's left hand while looking at the music. The average age in band was about 50; I was 17. (And surely the weak point of the situation...)) It was a great experience; there's nothing like being in the middle of an old-school big band. What a sound.

 

[trapdoor2]

Dad had a Teac RTR and a my brother xferred all their BB LPs to one RTR tape. It was on all the time...the background music to my weekends as a kid (at night I listened to AM pop). I didn't experience 'normal' rock 'n roll until I put an 8-track in my VW.

Even then, I had my favorite BBs on 8-track.

 

[elihu]

 

[buster poser]

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about guys like Freddie Green and how they approached six string guitar in a setting where guitar was not (gasp!) primary. I think you can learn a ton that's applicable to the many styles that followed swing by investing a little time in rhythm concepts used in big band. You don't have to like "jazz" to make that worthwhile either, imo.

Big band is awesome anyway, there's no western swing nor a whole lot of other music without it. Crazy you can hear Freddie more or less throughout here.



I know this is just the quartet, but I love hearing that approach so prominently and watching him play.

 

[Rustbucket]

Big Bandas are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine.

 

[LOSTVENTURE]

Born in 1946, to a music loving mom, this is the stuff I grew up with. Mom had a record player that played constantly.
The first live music I saw was when my parents took me to a Dorsey brother's dance.
I can still say that hearing a big band live, for the first time, completely changed the way I listen to music.

 

[Engine Swap]

 

[sax4blues]

Our 1970’s high school band played this , was the tenor sax player. We won many state championships

 

[Engine Swap]

Favorite Ellington tune!