Big Bands of 1965-1979

[jazzbo]

I'm a big fan of the Clarke Boland Big Band. . . the Jones Lewis Big Band less so.

Toshiro Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin Big Band had some great sides in the 'seventies.

The Count Basie Orchestra of this time I used to neglect but I think they created and played some pretty interesting music.

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by jazzbo

[HutchFan]

IMO, the high water mark for big bands in the (early) 70s is DUKE ELLINGTON.  Ellington died in '74, but he packed a lot of terrific music into those last few years.

- New Orleans Suite (Atlantic)
- The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (Fantasy)
- Togo Brava Suite (United Artists)
- "The River Suite" on The Private Collection, Vol. 5 (Saja)
- New York, New York (Storyville)

And many others.

All beyond category.

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by HutchFan

[jazzbo]

+1

[HutchFan]

Frank Foster was making some outstanding big band music during the 1970s:

- The Loud Minority (Mainstream, 1972)
- Well Water (Piadrum, rec. 1977, rel. 2007)
- Bursting Out! ‎(Denon, 1978)    
- Manhattan Fever (Denon, 1978) -- not to be confused with the earlier BN release with the same title            
- Shiny Stockings (Denon, 1979)
- Twelve Shades of Black: For All Intents And Purposes (Leo, 1979)

I really like every one of these albums -- but Well Water would be my top choice.  It's got amazing soloists and top-shelf compositions.  It's music that's rooted in the tradition -- in the idiom -- but not constrained by it.  It's Frank Foster music.  Not generic in any way.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

39 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Anyway, Boland / Clarke and Jones / Lewis are recent tweaks to my listening habits that are here to stay. Perhaps that's the high water mark for this era of big band music.

Don't forget Gerald Wilson.

[JSngry]

48 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

The thread was largely inspired by a recent trip to Minneapolis, where records by Maynard Ferguson and Don Ellis seemed to be mainstays of the second hand bin ecosystem. I don't really know these records or this period.

There's a few really good Maynard records from that time, the MF Horn series. Great band, great energy, and charts that didn't back down from the challenge of having an audience-facing repertoire. But that stopped. Boo. 

Poor Don Ellis, never could make up his mind...but there are some really good Don Ellis records. Goofy, but seriously good records.

No idea what they got rid of in Minneapolis, but my hunch is that the people who got rid of the records had no idea of what they were buying to begin with. So often, that's how it goes 

[BFrank]

Don't forget Woody Herman. He put out some high energy albums in the early 70s on OJC. Giant Steps might the be best of them. MF Horn 4&5, Live at Jimmy's was a really good live album. You can feel the energy in this set.

Gerald Wilson has been mentioned a couple of times. The Pacific Jazz stuff (especially the Mosaic box) was great, and there is a live set included.

[Rabshakeh]

9 hours ago, jazzbo said:

The Count Basie Orchestra of this time I used to neglect but I think they created and played some pretty interesting music.

8 hours ago, HutchFan said:

IMO, the high water mark for big bands in the (early) 70s is DUKE ELLINGTON.  Ellington died in '74, but he packed a lot of terrific music into those last few years.

I'm specifically looking for more bop oriented big band stuff here. This isn't to downplay Ellington and Basie. We all know and love their music already. Those late Ellingtons in particular are masterpieces. But I think that their revivals predated the bands to which this thread relates, and represents something a bit different. 

Separately, there's the trend of the avant big bands - some great records there: Crystals, Hearinga Suite, Seasons, Creative Music Orchestra, Escalator Over The Hill, Gardens of Harlem, but they're rarely by ongoing groups, and, again, I think that they represent a different thing to the sudden reappearance of brassy big band modernists.

8 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Frank Foster was making some outstanding big band music during the 1970s:

- The Loud Minority (Mainstream, 1972)
- Well Water (Piadrum, rec. 1977, rel. 2007)
- Bursting Out! ‎(Denon, 1978)    
- Manhattan Fever (Denon, 1978) -- not to be confused with the earlier BN release with the same title            
- Shiny Stockings (Denon, 1979)
- Twelve Shades of Black: For All Intents And Purposes (Leo, 1979)

I really like every one of these albums -- but Well Water would be my top choice.  It's got amazing soloists and top-shelf compositions.  It's music that's rooted in the tradition -- in the idiom -- but not constrained by it.  It's Frank Foster music.  Not generic in any way.

I know the Loud Minority, which is a great record, but had no idea that he did others. I shall definitely check out Well Water.

8 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Don't forget Gerald Wilson.

3 hours ago, BFrank said:

Gerald Wilson has been mentioned a couple of times. The Pacific Jazz stuff (especially the Mosaic box) was great, and there is a live set included.

I've oddly been struggling with Gerald Wilson a bit.  I'm not sure when it will hook me - Even Lewis / Jones took a while. The group doesn't seem on a first listen to have quite the arranging firepower of the other bands of the era, but that opinion will probably dissipate on a second listen.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[jazzbo]

Well I'll just say that the Basie and Ellington of this period are not the Basie and Ellington of before and bop is in there.

[Rabshakeh]

8 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

Well I'll just say that the Basie and Ellington of this period are not the Basie and Ellington of before and bop is in there.

No arguments here. I still think that there's a difference between them and e.g. Akiyoshi's or Ellis' big bands.

[JSngry]

Truthfully, I find it next impossible to think of Ellington as a "big band".

[Rabshakeh]

@Mark Strykerof this parish recently started an interesting thread on twitter relating to the ongoing reception of this kind of music, starting with the following article:

https://www.jazzedmagazine.com/articles/guest-editorial/25-of-the-best-big-band-recordings-of-all-time/?fbclid=IwAR2--Qa18QBjJWfwl7VSGbimATMBI8dT8FUBFG06Ed0rzV6fSvAH6Ufyz0Y

The thread can be found here:

Edited July 14, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

Ok, let me recommend something I would never recommend unless it was REALLY unique.

Make no mistake, this is a Lyle Mays album, 100%. They literally turned the band over to him to make this record 

The results? Meh on the solos, there is no real pocket (how could there be) but the charts are a wonder, probably the first of its kind (and maybe the last?).

Lyle left Denton to go on the road with Woody Herman, and we were all waiting for the next "great" Woody Herman record courtesy of Lyle Mays, but it never came. And Lyle never really wrote for big band again.

The reason? The grapevine had it that his charts were too difficult for a road band with only some stable personnel to perfect. This was reality, college was not. 

With that in mind, I say on all seriousness that the greatest big band of the last quarter of the 20th century might well have been Weather Report. There's a reason a certain type of writer gravitated to electronics. Color and control of outcome. 

 If you really want to get geeky about, this a good read: https://www.lylemays.com/lab75

 

:

[Rabshakeh]

Listening to The Band – The Alpine Power Plant (MPS, 1972)

There's a real tendency towards big bands from the period recording double LPs. Presumably it's a matter of not knowing when you'd next record, and wanting to get the whole book down, but it does lead to some sprawling and excessive records.

[Gheorghe]

Big Band was never my strongest point, but during my time, I mean my generation maybe the first choice was Thad Jones-Mel Lewis. I saw the Thad-Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band and it was a wonderful experience. After Thad Jones left, I saw it as "Mel Lewis Big Band" but maybe two good tunes from the old Thad Jones days were played, the rest was Bob Brookmey compositions and most of us were very disappointed, it didn´t appeal to our tastes....

Of course, I also saw and loved the Sun Ra Arkestra in the late 70´s still with John Gilmore and Marshall Allen featured, plus the very nice singer June Tyson (singers normally are not my greatest love, but Tyson was wonderful). 

Oh yeah, and I saw the Woody Herman Herd of 1979, with Nick Brignola playing, they played quite modern jazz. It was on a festival feature and others scheduled were Elvin Jones, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Chico Freeman, so I was not sure what it will be like. The typical pre bop swing bands was before my time and not really played during my youth, so I had expected an old man with some very old stuff you sometimes saw on old black white films, and was very surprisesd that it sounded modern....well Woody himself was really an old man, playing one or two short shots on his clarinet, but the band played a different style.....

[BFrank]

I know this is out of the time frame (2005), but a great late-era Gerald Wilson. Worth checking out.

[Rabshakeh]

On 6/26/2022 at 8:20 PM, JSngry said:

the Top 40 horn bands were popular,  

Sorry to ask a dumb question, but what are these? Like the band Chicago? 

[T.D.]

 

9 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Sorry to ask a dumb question, but what are these? Like the band Chicago? 

Or Blood, Sweat and Tears or Tower of Power or even Average White Band?

I don't know either...

Not meaning to say the above are big bands, but I read Jim's post as suggesting that "Top 40 horn bands" might have gotten people interested in big band sound.

[Rabshakeh]

That's how I read it. I am just not familiar with the term. I'm not particularly familiar with the groups or their music either.

I'm not sure whether they made it in the UK, but if they did at the time they were pretty forgotten when I started getting into music in the 1990s.

[JSngry]

Buttloads of horn bands. BS&T opened the floodgates. Me and a buddy played a game of phone tag coming up with all the ones we could think of and it took us, like 3-4 days before we ran out.

Don't make me go through that again  Just cue up "Vehicle" and that will give you the general idea.

Keep in mind that this is what was known as "jazz-rock" before "fusion" became a thing. This is pop music, although occasionally in spite of itself. 

[T.D.]

29 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

That's how I read it. I am just not familiar with the term. I'm not particularly familiar with the groups or their music either.

I'm not sure whether they made it in the UK, but if they did at the time they were pretty forgotten when I started getting into music in the 1990s.

Average White Band probably doesn't qualify (smallish group with just 2 saxophones), but they were from Scotland iirc and Pick up the pieces was a monster hit around 1974-5. Cut the Cake was a follow-up hit, but I think they soon faded away.

 

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

Buttloads of horn bands. BS&T opened the floodgates. Me and a buddy played a game of phone tag coming up with all the ones we could think of and it took us, like 3-4 days before we ran out.

Don't make me go through that again  Just cue up "Vehicle" and that will give you the general idea.

Keep in mind that this is what was known as "jazz-rock" before "fusion" became a thing. This is pop music, although occasionally in spite of itself. 

Oh good grief, I forgot about Vehicle! I heard that innumerable times on the radio back in the day, but the band (Ides of March) never stuck in my mind.

[Rabshakeh]

Thanks!

Ted Goia's on/off substack has an article on horn bands today, but I don't subscribe to it so couldn't read it. I was wondering what they were, when I came across the above.

Sorry - one more question: is Top Forty Horn Bands a term that a non jazz fan would use? Or would your average rock/pop/funk lover just think Tower or Power was a psychedelic soul group whereas Blood Sweat and Tears were whatever they were (never listened to them)?

Edited August 31, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

Coliseum led the pack in the UK as far as "horn bands" went. Never made it big here, though.

From Canada, we got Lighthouse. "One Fine Day".

I would advisedly suggest checking out the first Chase album. "Get It On" was the hit, but the entire album was a pretty big hit. How this is relevant is that Bill Chase left Woody Herman to have a jazz-rock band built around four trumpets, each one playing higher than the next on. And their 1971 debut album was a hit, a pretty big hit actually  

Meanwhile, in 1970, MF Horn was released on Columbia in a very dull cover and aimed straight to a jazz audience. It did ok, but the Chase record (on Epic) was a genuine pop hit 

So...screech trumpet had a moment, and in the end, Maynard's moment was a lot longer. But Chase... to hear THAT on AM radio, that was startling, to put it mildly. 

 

[Rabshakeh]

Oh. So this wasn't just rock / funk / soul bands thinking it would be cool to have funk horn sections? There were some concerted efforts to market jazz dudes as rock?

Never really understood Maynard Ferguson's career, although I like that Jimmy's record a lot. He just seems to pop up out of nowhere.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[Rooster_Ties]

Speaking of Chicago, I super-vaguely remember like I read gosh-knows-where once, that Chicago did a sort of half-‘traditional’ big band album of some sort (or maybe it was just a few tracks).

I never heard it, nor was I terribly curious — but now I’m wondering if I’m just imagining I heard about it once online.

Ring any bells for anyone??