The Big Band. The American Jazz Orchestra.
5 saxes, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, Piano/bass/drums/guitar. Maybe one of the ‘bones is a bass trombone. Maybe a trumpet player plays flugelhorn. Maybe someone plays french horn. Obviously 2 alto, 2 tenor and 1 bari sax…but maybe guys double on clarinet or flute or soprano sax or even bass clarinet. In some cases, the bass player might double on tuba. Though more often he’s going to switch between acoustic or electric bass when needed….stand-up or the fender.
I think this sort of ensemble is the most neglected but embedded formats for music in the 21st century. It’s as silly to dismiss as it would be to say the rock and roll power trio of guitar/bass/drums is a dead format. It’s only a format, an orchestrational and arrangement approach. A collection of instruments is not music. But the format is an object of projection to a variety of groups. Many of the racial and political complexities of Jazz intersect within the format of the big band.
I’m doing a gig tomorrow (Monday) night with a local big band and I thought it would worthwhile to spend a few days checking out various big bands to hone my big band concept befor the gig. I think I may have stumbled into something far more complex.
Greetings all to my Sunday Jazz bloggings. If you’ve never ran across me before, I try to publish a diary about jazz or its related forms every Sunday evening around 10pm EST. All are welcome.
Maybe I’ve been reading too much Michel Foucault lately, but in the midst of getting this diary together I had a thought: If we look at the discourse around Big Bands—which in the context of a musical institution, I would include performance—we can see certain historical power struggles that are embedded in US culture.
But that is a rather big topic. One which I can only begin to hint at today. Let’s dig some music.
How clichéd can big bands be?
And how good can they be?
To many folks, Big Bands are Jazz. The music is as associated with this format as rock is with the 2 guitar/bass/drum quartet—quintet if the singer doesn’t play. Jazz in its heyday as popular music did so while primarily featuring this format. This format was fully established and embedded in popular music by world war two and it provides the sound track for the post war proclamation of American global power.
Big Band Jazz is associated with a triumphant and successful America. Perhaps it is the music of the American Empire.
Of course Jazz is the creation of African Americans. Many white folks and other non-African-Americans have been involved with the making of Jazz since very very early in its history, but up until at least the late 1960s, the overwhelming majority of its innovators were always men of color. However at the very peak of Jazz’s popularity in mass American culture, the so called “King of Swing” was a white man. And he led a Big Band. And many of those WWII era Big Band hits were played by white bands.
Furthermore, Big Bands were the very site of some of our first incidents of public integration. Benny Goodman led an inter-racial group with Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton. Dave Brubeck integrated the US Army band during WWII. Louis Armstrong performed in interracial combos in the 1950s which caused controversy and Louis’ eventual decision never to return to New Orleans.
Big Band Jazz is on another level a field where aspects of American racial politics has played out.
And there is so much more within them....
Since Big Bands have 17+ members, they can be difficult to economically maintain. To pay everyone at least $100 for a gig and cover minor costs, the band would need at least $2000 for a gig. Consequently there are two places where Bug Bands thrive.
First, there the “rehearsal” bands and there are two kinds. There is “jazz professional” band which features quality and experienced jazz musicians willing to work for lower than usual rates in order to play big band music. Some of these bands may get paid decently for their performances, but the rehearsals are likely unpaid….and rehearsals are important when dealing with 17+ people. The other sort of “professional band” is made up of musicians who perhaps aren’t serious jazz musicians. I don’t mean guys who can’t play, but perhaps guys who were more into performing concert band things in college. Many of these folks are band directors in public schools today (and some of them damn good at their jobs too!). Or were at least trained and certified to do that. The first form of professional band holds the better prospect of playing new music or more advanced things like Mingus and Duke Ellington. The second group is more likely to do Buddy Rich charts and maybe some Sinatra/Basie. The first is more likely to be driven to play interesting music they don’t usually get to perform. The second is more likely to promote an element of nostalgia. Some of the actual folks in these two categories will exist in both. And this category probably needs some elaboration.
Secondly, there are the various student bands. Big Bands have become the primary way to teach kids about jazz and have become features of prestige in college programs. Jazz education is another complex ball of wax as well and there are people analyzing it from an anthropological and sociological perspective. On the one hand, it is interesting to consider how moving more and more big band music into High Schools feeds the musical imagination of our kids. There is a bit of a hope in better teaching racial equality in teaching jazz and its history, however I somewhat suspect the High Schools that have good Jazz bands lean towards High Schools in Urban areas or in suburbs more racially heterogeneous but class homogenous than average.
Big Bands in colleges are an interesting thing. They create the risk of turning big band music into a museum piece, but maybe Lincoln Center and Wynton Marsalis are doing that anyway. However, as a collegiate activity, there is also great potential for experimentation and innovation.
Big Band Jazz is central in recreating the next generation of working musicians which in turn will affect the reproduction of American culture…even if it doesn’t seem to have a direct effect on popular and mass media culture.
And what is kinda fascinating to me is that what I wrote above probably could have been written at any point in the last 50 years…minus the line about Lincoln Center.
No more about education today. This topic is just way too big….
“Big Band” is a misleading term. It should be “Jazz Orchestra.” The history of the development of the Jazz Orchestra is the history of early of jazz. Many of the early 1920s groups featured string sections and had very little improvisation.
The standard big band orchestration was pioneered by Don Redman, I think during his time with Fletcher Henderson, but possibly afterwards. It’s too late to try and email Phil Schap and ask him.
Sophisticated Lady
The Jazz Age and into the 30s feature big band music, which of course gives rise to Sir Duke
Hot spots in NYC include the famous Cotton Club and Savoy Ballroom. Chick Webb was at the Savoy Ballroom
And in order to have enough material for his radio show, Benny Goodman uses the “book” of Chick Webb….the arrangements
We seem to collectively acknowledge the role of Hollywood and Broadway during the depression as providing—albeit not always healthy—ways of coping with the economic strife. But the Big Band era is also this time period and radio access a bit more democratic than access to a Broadway show. If Jazz is marginalized in the narrative of the depression, than it is due to the racial factors. And of course by the later 1930s, Jazz is redefined to its greatest hero being a white guy.
But Benny Goodman was no fool and not only did he continue to provide high level music, he also challenged the racial segregation of the time.
This man did not challenge such things
Nor did these guys
I’ve heard this guy had more self awareness…..
(I do believe Shaw referred to Glenn Miller and the Dorsey's as "Republican Jazz")
So this what folks go off to war hearing. In fact many of the white guys above gladly and enthusiastically perform for the US troops. And we lose Glenn Miller. That’s up there with losing Buddy Holly or Ronnie Van Zandt. In the nostalgia making machine, I think we see here not just embracing of Jazz by white folk as if it is their own. I think we also see the association establish between a particular kind of big band music and a perceived object of American greatness: The Victory over Hitler.
And of course there how this
Count Basie one o’clock jump
Meshes with this
To create this
And at this point in my narrative…im really not sure where to go. To be honest, I think I feel like I’ve stumbled into something big…no pun intended.
I do think it is worth bringing up the music of Billy Eckstein and also Dizzy’s big band from the 40s.
And then of course how big bands develop into the work of Mingus and Sun Ra. And even bigger, what Miles and Gil Evans do with big music.
Now one thing that strikes me as very interesting is all the rehearsal bands there are. All the guys who get together weekly to play big band arrangements. I can think of several of these groups in Jersey. I know they exist in NY. How about the rest of the country?
Many of these rehearsal bands take their inspiration more so from this sort of thing…..
And this
Than from this
And this could lead you to think that Big Band music was stuck in some sort of time machine that keeps it from going forward. And you would be wrong.
Fables of Faubus
I don’t know who this is. But I know some of the guys in this video.
And there was this
I do know that there are hipper videos of the Swiss Army Big Band
Than of the US Army or Marine Big Bands on the You Tubes.
It’s a curious thing, The Jazz Orchestra
Leave it to the Europeans to experiment with Big Bands and electronica….
No diary has gotten away from more than this one! Im not sure what I’ve stepped into….but it’s an interesting space. I guess I’m left with the following questions/points….
1) Has Big Band Jazz become more solidly associated with representing the United States musically than other musical forms?
2) If it has, does it connect more with the nostalgia for the 1930s and 40s and a perceived “simpler time back then” narrative?
3) How does that process marginalize the creative innovation of African-Americans?
4) “Big Band” is just an orchestrational approach, the format is not and has not been stuck in 1946. New music is created for the format all the time. But how does is that compatible for the issues of USA identity that Big Band music can represent?
5) How does the role of Big Band music in education reflect the narrative of American identity and of race relations?
6) How does the training of musicians in this style affect the reproduction of American culture?
7) Is Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln Center doing good for Jazz?
8) Can I truly go full out Foucault and do an archeology of Big Bands?
And why is it that, at best, I can expect maybe $60 for a big gig at a theater that I’ve already done like 4 rehearsals for?????????
Thanks for listening everyone. Next week is my own birthday, but I have no youtube clips of me playing any jazz. Just clips playing the rock and roll. It’s possible I take next week off! We’ll see. Please support your local jazz musicians and all local live music!