JAZZ REVIEW : The Juggernaut Rolls On at Grand Ave. Bar

The Capp-Pierce Juggernaut, launching a series of Monday night big band at the Biltmore Hotel’s Grand Avenue Bar, drew a heavy and happy crowd, defying competition from the televised NCAA men’s basketball finals.

From the moment pianist Nat Pierce eased into a medium tempo blues in a Basie groove, with the mood accentuated by the rhythm guitar pulse of John Pisano, the Juggernaut took off like the inexorable force for which it is named.

Almost every number was a judicious mixture of tightly-meshed ensembles, biting brass passages and occasional section interludes, such as the five-sax soli passage on “In A Mellotone,” a tune that revealed every horn player in the band as a soloist of the first rank.

The two tenor saxes, doing battle on Neal Hefti’s “Whirly Bird,” offered a study in contrast: Bob Shepard a little more hollow in sound than Rickey Woodard, but both in full improvisatory command. There were suitable solo openings for all three trombonists--Slide Hyde, in an elegant examination of “A Time for Love,” Buster Cooper in his bumble bee impression, and Thurman Green.

Other bright moments were offered by Bill Berry’s muted cornet on “Open All Night” and, of course, the potently supportive drumming of Frank Capp throughout the evening.

A maverick chart was Bob Florence’s “Slime House,” a bristling work that was entirely ensemble, sans solos--proof, as if it were needed, that extemporization is not necessarily the lifeblood of jazz.

Although it would be wishful thinking to claim that big bands are back, it is true that occasional local one-nighters such as this are capable of attracting loyalists to the swinging sounds of a 16-member powerhouse. Next Monday: the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra.