‘Blowin’ Up a Storm’ for Big Bands

With tributes to artists ranging from Duke Ellington and Count Basie to Gerry Mulligan and Thad Jones, KLON-FM’s “Blowin’ Up a Storm,” May 23 through 26 at the Redondo Beach Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza hotel, will be a feast for big-band devotees.

Music written by or for the bands of Ellington, Basie, Mulligan, Jones, Jay McShann, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Boyd Raeburn, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Gil Evans, Terry Gibbs, Louie Bellson, Bill Holman, Toshiko Akiyoshi and others will be presented in 16 concerts, some of which will be at the famed Avalon Casino on Catalina Island.

The ensembles will be fronted mostly by players associated with the featured writer or leader. For instance, Bill Berry, who played with Ellington in the early ‘60s, will lead a program of rarely heard material from the Duke. He will be joined by other ex-Ellingtonians such as Clark Terry and Britt Woodman. Pete Rugolo will conduct some never-before-recorded material by the Kenton band. Modern Jazz Quartet pianist John Lewis will front a band playing music written by Tadd Dameron and Chico O’Farrill for Gillespie’s big band, of which Lewis was an original member.

Also on hand will be Johnny Coles, a longtime associate of the great Evans, who will be one of several trumpeters performing arrangements that Evans wrote for Miles Davis. Among them are songs on the albums “Porgy and Bess” and “Sketches of Spain.”

Among the other expected participants are Gerald Wilson, John LaPorta, Billy Harper, Lew Tabackin and Norris Turney.

Full registration for all four days’ events, which also include films from the Mark Cantor archives and panel discussions, are on sale at $300. For information, call (310) 985-1686. Single-event tickets will go on sale in a week.