Quotes About Big band

There's sort of an open offer to work with a guy in Los Angeles who does big band and orchestra arrangements who was at least an acquaintance to Les Baxter before he passed away.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.

I know it might be surprising to some, but anyone who knows me - especially those who shared a changing room with me in my playing days who first told me I could sing - will tell you what a big fan I am of big band music.

Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.

Big band music, to me, it really has three key elements. First is the lyrics are really sweet, and they're just really family-friendly. The second thing is the music is jazz music, so the music is complicated enough to hold your attention for 5 or 6 million plays. That makes the songs interesting. The last part is the fact that it's danceable.

Living composers writing for big band are very few and far between. There are not a lot of them, and I have a talent for doing it. I am zeroing in on what I do best.

Ella can work nightclubs that Duke might not be able to work, because of having the big band. Where they go now is strictly a matter of their own names and talents.

I've been through this fame thing before, when the band was big in '80, '81.

I've always liked Frank Sinata and Big Band music.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.

With a smaller setting, you have a lot more freedom and flexibility within a given moment, but not necessarily the velocity you have with a big band.

I started a big band when grunge was popular. I mean, that didn't make much sense.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Bacharach has such a brilliant ear for melody and his music has a completely timeless feel to it; I thought it would be great to do a whole album of his music and to record with a full orchestra and big band which is something I hadn't done before.

In my day, when I was a young kid, army duty was compulsory in South Africa or you go to jail. I had the choice, so I spent a year in the entertainment unit, and outside of doing shows - and I used to write for, arrange for the big band - outside of doing that, I actually had a rock band in the army.

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

It was by listening to Goodman's band, that I began to notice the guitarist Charlie Christian, who was one of the first musicians to play solos in a big band set-up.

I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.

I mean, I don't think I would call Claus to do an album of big band tunes. You know, just like arrangers write for the artist they have in mind; you have to keep in mind if you're going to work with Claus Ogerman. You invite him to do what he does.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. So I made an economic decision, and it turned out the best judgment I ever made in my life.

My dad was a huge big band and jazz fan, and we both sort of enjoyed be-bop, but man, it required so much skill to play it. And then there was cool jazz, the era that Miles, Coltrane, and Ornette ushered in, and that found a home in me. It turns out that that music was just really where I breathed.

Then I left that school and I went to Cerritos College, which was in southern California; they had one of the best big band programs in the country at the time.

One interesting thing about jazz, or art in general, but jazz especially is such an individual art form in the sense that improvisation is such a big part of it, so it feels like it should be less soldiers in an army and more like free spirits melding. And yet, big band jazz has a real military side to it.

When I first set up my big band, I only had Gilson Lavis, the drummer from Squeeze, with me. He was the core element. Whenever a group hits the big time, they always get a new drummer because they really need that. You can make do with rubbish elsewhere.