my first big band concert

[dolfinjetpacks]

tonight, i went to the Columbus Music Hall to see Vaughn Wieste's 21-piece Famous Jazz Orchestra perform. this constitutes my first big band performance experience, since all the other jazz bands i've seen have been small combos and sextets (i'm not including when i saw Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, though). the room was mostly full of very old people

Comments

[jdquintette]

A lot of Thad Jones charts are fiendishly difficult. He likes to write solis for the sax section that are essentially bebop solos transcribed for five reeds (with a soprano lead instead of alto). If you have the first tenor chair (as I usually do) you don't even get the melody, just some bizarre inside harmony, kind of analogous to the viola part in a string quartet.

But my favorite Thad charts are the medium tempo swingers like "Don't Get Sassy."