Big Bands: Not an Endangered Species

At a recent concert by Woody Herman’s orchestra, the present leader, saxophonist Frank Tiberi, referred to big bands as an endangered species.

After some four decades of such observations, it is time to set this canard at rest once and for all. The impact of rock, of fusion, of mass concern for small groups, has been immense; but this does not mean that the big band is following the route of the dinosaur.

What has changed is the socio-economic situation that has made it impossible for many 15-piece ensembles to remain together on a year-round basis; but even the most superficial glance at today’s scene confirms that there will be big bands as long as musicians can be found in the tens of thousands, streaming out of the schools and colleges, and as long as there are composer/arrangers who need an orchestral outlet for their music.

The Count Basie Orchestra is a relevant case in point. Like the present Ellington and Woody Herman orchestras, this is not a “ghost band,” but a direct descendant of the group led by the original leader, with many of the same musicians. The real ghost bands, which survive only on nostalgia, consist mainly of men who were born after the original leaders died (Glenn Miller, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Harry James).

A recent visit to Disneyland during a Basie engagement provided powerful evidence of the extent to which a musically valid orchestra can beat the odds in 1988 without depending exclusively on its audience’s memories.

Frank Foster, the composer and tenor saxophonist who now leads the band (he was a Basie sideman from 1953-64), says: “We’re playing at more and more colleges; the band seems to draw its audiences from every age group.”

Dennis Wilson, who last year left the Basie trombone section to function as the band’s music production manager, added: “These men do more than just play. At some of the colleges, they offer instrumental, vocal, big band and arranging clinics in the daytime, with several sidemen and our singer, Carmen Bradford, as regular participants.

“The accent now in performance is not just on old favorites, but on broadening our library. We’re planning a new, mainly instrumental album with some fresh, exciting music.” (The band’s last album, with singer Diane Schuur, has been No. 1 on the jazz charts for four months, and just won a Grammy.)

With bookings set solidly through October, two weeks in Paris in December and a Japanese tour due in 1989, the Basie band is emerging from a short-lived crisis triggered last year by the necessity to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.

The personnel is a fascinating mix of old and young, black and white (at last count there were four white members), old hands (Sonny Cohn the trumpeter, joined in 1960; Eric Dixon, who plays tenor and flute, in 1962) and new additions. Among the latter is guitarist Paul Weeden, whose story is unique.

Now sitting in the chair occupied for a half century by Freddie Green, Weeden came to the band from Kvitsoy, Norway, his home for many years; he had been living in Scandinavia since 1966. Now 59, with scores of credits all over Europe, Weeden was persuaded by trumpeter Harry (Sweets) Edison to call Frank Foster about filling the vacant guitar chair.

“It’s odd,” he says. “Years ago I told Freddie Green I’d love to have his job. He said kiddingly, ‘You’re welcome to it; I’m getting tired.’ And now here I am sitting where he sat.” Weeden, playing acoustic guitar in the Green tradition, even bears a slight resemblance to his predecessor.

New also are the drummer, Dave Gibson; bassist Bill Moring, and a promising lead trumpeter, Mike Williams, who joins Sonny Cohn, Bob Ojeda, and the returnee Byron Stripling, who left last year to play Louis Armstrong in the short-lived theatrical play “Satchmo.” This powerful trumpet section is matched by five empathic saxophones, led by Danny Turner on alto and with Danny House, at 26 the second youngest member (two months older than Byron Stripling), displaying guts and imagination in his alto solos.

Except for vacation time, the Basie band still operates on a permanent basis. Other bands, though unable to keep up a comparable schedule, remain viable forces on the big band scene. Lionel Hampton is often unfairly neglected in assessments of the orchestral picture; he divides his time between tours with a large orchestra, visits to the Lionel Hampton School of Music in Moscow, Ida., and taking care of his extensive real estate interests. His library is a potpourri of early works and intriguing new pieces.

New York based are the bands of Toshiko Akiyoshi, whose compositions have established this as the most adventurous unit of all on today’s scene; Mel Lewis, who still works locally and tours occasionally with a band descended from the group he co-led with the late Thad Jones from 1965; Gil Evans, whose music has taken a turn in the direction of big band rock, with synthesizer effects and a more heavy-handed beat than of yore, but still a vital figure; and a few other part time bands, most notably the American Jazz Orchestra, a repertory group that gives concerts at Cooper Union.

Dizzy Gillespie, who led a splendid big band last summer for an international tour, will reorganize this summer (in fact, Basie’s manager Dennis Wilson will be joining his trombone section). Illinois Jacquet has taken to leading a big band lately, with considerable success. Others usually associated with small groups have expanded similarly from time to time.

Southern California has long been a haven for part time bands. A distinguished survivor is Gerald Wilson, who has lead a large ensemble off and on since the early 1940s and continues to record for Discovery.

Also Los Angeles based are the Doc Severinsen “Tonight Show” band with its strong swing era orientation, and various groups that show up now and then in clubs and on records: the Frank Capp-Nat Pierce Juggernaut, the Bill Berry L.A. Big Band, the Bob Florence, Don Menza and Bill Holman orchestras.

In Canada, Rob McConnell has lead an award winning big band for many years (he is due to move to Los Angeles soon to become a faculty member at the Dick Grove School of Music). Overseas there are frequent manifestations of the band phenomenon: Ernie Wilkins, the former Basie arranger, who leads his “Almost Big Band” in Copenhagen, and the radio staff orchestras for which there is no U.S. counterpart. Japan, of course, has several big bands with a strong jazz direction; but then, when it comes to jazz, Japan has just about everything.

Adding up the evidence on this international scene, there can be only one answer to the persistent question about the alleged demise of jazz in its expansive orchestral form: Many big bands today simply cannot afford the bloated cost of travel, whether by planes, trains or automobiles, so they are effectively grounded much of the time. In other words, the species is not endangered; it just isn’t the source of income it used to be for the airlines. Or the railroads.