You heard me.
I’ve always enjoyed the style and charm of the genre, but my knowledge is lacking. I loved the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack and would concider some of its influences, except for the obvious Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus.
Any recommendations?
The classics: Glenn Miller, Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Cab Calloway, and Benny Goodman.
Contemporary artists: The Brian Setzer Orchestra and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
Duke Ellington is the man. Specific recommendations: Uptown (includes the classic, definitive version of “A Train”; you need this album), Three Suites (Ellington takes on the Nutcracker, and makes it swing like hell), and Ellington at Newport.
Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington.
Duke Ellington!
I favor Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass among the active large ensembles. Gerald Wilson’s band is another that may be less active these days.
Check out the Bob Mintzer big band for some cool modern stuff. As well there is the Jaco Pastorius Big Band. These groups are on the cutting edge of Big Band music. Some just plain fun big band though is Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band. All of these groups are modern and still running. Yes Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Brian Setzer could be considered “big band” but they are more exagerrated and popular/mainstream. Check out the essentials first. The Lincoln Center Orchestra is a big band run by Wynton Marsalis. You can here concerts from the Lincoln center on KCSM Jazz Internet Radio. In fact I’m sure there is a big band program somewhere in their schedule. It’s a great radio station.
When people say that Ellington is essential…they speak the truth.
Another current band I like a lot is Either/Orchestra – big band lineup, but they play their own music, so it really is a modern take on the genre.
They also do an arrangement of King Crimson’s “Red” that is outrageous.
Another band to check out is Stan Kenton. He swung in his early career and then got into some different sounds. He tends to be a bit on the loud side. Cuban Fire is a great album though.
Minor correction: Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. The LCJO’s first album was Ellington and it’s a gem.
Someone else mentioned Glenn Miller. That’s more like smooth jazz and most people don’t really include him in the same breath as the Duke or Stan Kenton.
I also like their version of George Harrison’s Don’t Bother Me.
Buddy Rich had an awesome band. The one with West Side Story’s Somewhere…holy shit. You can get lost in that.
Another vote for the Boss Brass - a good starting place might be their Overtime CD
One more of my favorite that hasn’t been mentioned - Frank Capp Juggernaut - Concord Jazz Heritage Series
Count Basie’s band was doing rock 'n roll before rock 'n roll was invented.
This is mostly true. Miller’s “In the Mood” is a big band swing classic, no doubt about that. It’s worth owning in some form, preferably on a big band swing compilation as opposed to a Glenn Miller compilation. But beyond that hit, they were generally thought of as safe, white-bread, vanilla music for rich white folks, as opposed to the really swingin’ big bands like Ellington and Basie that were getting the kids to dance at the hottest nightclubs.
As for me, as much as I love big band swing, I’m also very fond of jump blues, that often-forgotten link between swing and rock ‘n’ roll. You can argue that it started with Cab Calloway’s big band, obviously best known for their charismatic zoot-suited singer and wacky call-and-response lyrics. But getting into the late '40s and '50s, Louis Jordan bridged the gap as the big bands got smaller, turning into combos with 5 to 8 members. He was another singer in the Calloway tradition, and their shorter songs were structured much more like classic rhythm ‘n’ blues and rock ‘n’ roll. Louis Prima, that Vegas lounge icon who wrote Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing,” melded a few styles together with a zany, raunchy stage persona, but could probably be classified as jump blues too.
Most of the “swing” bands that popped up in the late 1990s were based more on the sparing, stripped-down sound of the jump blues bands, with a singer, a rhythm section (guitar, bass, drums), and a few horn players (one sax, trumpet, and trombone) as opposed to entire sections for each horn. Royal Crown Revue, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies (who were a lot more than a one-hit wonder swing band) were all like this, whereas the Brian Setzer Orchestra was actually a full big band with all the horns.
And hey, don’t forget the “moderns.” I was just listening to some Carla Bley while making dinner. Click on “Healing Power” (unfortunately, the sixty seconds run out just BEFORE things get cookin’). And my fave, Gil Evans. Click on “La Nevada” and “Stratusphunk.”
Good recomendations here… I’ll also add Gerry Mulligan.
All right, Duke Ellington is my first stop and “Uptown” will be my first purchase. I’ll be sure to check back to this thread and see what else I should get into.
Exactly. My intention was to throw out some of the big names for the OP to check out samples of their individual tracks on iTunes or somewhere.