Favorite Modern Big Bands

[Chicago Expat]

Tyler Gilmore's 9th & Lincoln - "Static Line".

Exhilarating album. More in the Darcy James Argue school of music. Stream here... Bandcamp page

Jeff Fairbanks' Project Hansori - "Mulberry Street"

Big band composition inspired by Asian folk music.

Edited June 26, 2011 by Chicago Expat

[brownie]

It's not a regular big band but when Martial Solal assembles his Grand Orchestre (Dodecaband), it always produces impressive music!

[johnblitweiler]

never heard Darcy James Argue before I played "Brooklyn Babylon" (borrowed from the public library) yesterday. Wow! Sort of a dark mix of Gil Evans, Willem Breuker, and Benjamin Britten, and Ingrid Jensen definitely can play the trumpet. Are other Argue records this colorful?

[BFrank]

Mingus Big Band - although I don't know if they qualify as "modern" or not.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Of course, for me, the James Brown band had it all! Not very current, of course, but very, very sharp.

Not much mention of Latin big bands, I see, so here's a few I like:

Tito Puente

Tito Rodriguez

Eddie Palmieri

Machito

Ray Barretto

My personal preference, but lots wouldn't say it was a jazz band, is for Perez Prado - for swing and general unabridged funkiness.

MG

[Buddha the Magnificent]

second on Maria Schneider; I grab everything I can by her. seconds also on The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

I recently picked up Woman Dreaming of Escape by Florencia González Big Band that I can't stop playing (her 2014 small combo release Between Loves is stellar as well: Florencia González - tenor sax; Jonathan Powell - trumpet, flugelhorn; Shannon Barnett - trombone; Luis Perdomo - piano; Fernando Huergo - bass; Franco Pinna - drums. Zoho Music).

There's always Creative Orchestra Music 1976 by Anthony Braxton (Arista).

Orrin Evans's Captain Black Big Band

There's always Gil Evans - Everyone knows the work Evans did with Miles, and I've enjoyed Ryan Truesdale's Centennial - Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans from 2012

[A Lark Ascending]

I'd echo John Hollenbeck - some of the most interesting large group jazz I've heard in recent years.

And don't miss Bob Brookmeyer's later orchestral works - they have a beautiful, almost Mahlerian feeling of weltschmerz.

Can't recall if they got an earlier mention but Barry Guy's orchestras - the London Jazz Composers Orchestra and the New Orchestra are tremendous though perhaps not for all tastes. I know they have a big following here.

And a marvellous occasional orchestra who I'm looking forward to seeing next month - The Dedication Orchestra with Louis Moholo at the helm and a host of friends and inheritors of the Blue Notes.

Edited October 21, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[xybert]

John Hollenbeck is a firm favourite.

[Milestones]

Hard to say what is meant here. What is modern? And do we mean bands that are together on a regular or frequent basis?

Certainly I like the stuff by Carla Bley, her own stuff and the late Liberation Orchestra by Haden.

There have been some very infrequent but interesting big band records by people like David Murray and Anthony Braxton.

Tom Harrell did at least one big band record--and a pretty good one IMO.

McCoy Tyner used the form at least a half-dozen times, and some of this music is great. Of course, it's been at least 20 years..and quite awhile since he released anything.

Joe Lovano has been involved in some big band projects too--perhaps most notably parts of Rush Hour.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Milestones

[Larry Kart]

Randy Sandke's "The Subway Ballet":

http://www.amazon.com/Subway-Ballet-Randy-Sandke-Metatonal/dp/B000FDF7D2/ref=sr_1_13?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1413924642&sr=1-13&keywords=randy+sandke

[JSngry]

What Mark De Clive-Lowe did with the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra on Take The Space Train, is, I think, one of the most interesting big band records in a good many years, like, a 70s fusion record only with drum machines and a real, live big band with real section players and fluent soloists, and a pocket that is broken-beat in nature.

I can hear the cringing , but for those who aren't hey, it's a combination of known ingredients that when blended together take on a character that is uniquely its own, like, ok, fusion, drum machines, and big bands, not dead ends after all!

[MomsMobley]

[johnblitweiler]

Randy Sandke's "The Subway Ballet":

http://www.amazon.com/Subway-Ballet-Randy-Sandke-Metatonal/dp/B000FDF7D2/ref=sr_1_13?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1413924642&sr=1-13&keywords=randy+sandke