Big Band Bash er en udsendelse på den amerikanske radiostation KSDS med jazzhistorikeren Loren Schoenberg som vært. Programmet sendes hver lørdag kl 13:00 lokal tid (22:00 dansk sommertid). I skrivende stund er der 23 udsendelser som kan afspilles ganske gratis på stationens hjemmeside.
Det er musikken fra swingtiden (1935-1945) som er Schoenbergs speciale, og det er derfor også den periode som dominerer; men programmet byder også på musik fra 60erne og helt frem til i dag. Er du interesseret i bigband-musikkens guldalder kan jeg varmt anbefale at lytte til Big Band Bash.
Musikken er nøje udvalgt og sammensat med interessante kommentarer undervejs. Mange af udsendelserne har et tema. Udsendelsen fra d. 7. februar indeholder f.eks. udelukkende optagelser med Duke Ellington og hans orkester, og dækker hele karriere fra 20erne frem til 70erne.
Udsendelsen d. 3. januar havde fokus på Fletcher Henderson – både hans eget orkester og samarbejdet med Benny Goodman. Henderson ledede et af de allerførste bigbands, og var desuden en fremragende arrangør.
Udsendelsen fra d. 24. januar havde fokus på Bob Crosbys orkester, med musik fra et nyt CD-bokssæt. Et af de mindre kendte orkestre fra swingtiden som jeg kun selv kendte af omtale.
One of the most creative jazz composers I know of, Mike Westbrook, died recently 90 years old. Westbrook played the piano – and the tuba and euphonium too; but it was as a composer and bandleader that he made the biggest impression on me.
Mike Westbrook’s music is a mixture of jazz, rock and cabaret. His biggest inspiration was Duke Ellington, and there are many parralels between the two – his love for strong dissonances and his interest in theater for example. Like Duke, Westbrook also wrote music with specific players in mind. One of them was Mike’s wife Kate, who was also his closest musical colaborator. From the mid 70s one she was involved nearly all of his project as a singer, lyricist and/or playing the Eb tenor horn, piccolo or bamboo flute. Here is Mike Westbrook describing his own approach to music:
Mike Westbrook was a master of large scale forms, and most of his albums has a story or a theme to them. His music is the slowest evolving i know of, and as a result his albums are often double and tripple LPs or CDs. A good example of his unique sence of form is the album ‘The Serpent Hit’ from 2013, in which the first five songs (or movements) are build around the same structure. In connection with the release of ‘The Serpent Hit’ in 2013, Kate and Mike were interviewed by BBC3 for the programme ‘Jazz on 3’. Here are a few excerpts:
Kate Westbrook: “I wanted it to be about the end of the world, and the way in which mankind/humankind is screwing up the world. But in order for it not to be doomy and self referential, I turned it into a kind of game. It’s also a cabaret idea, so that it has irony, persiflage, and it takes it into another area, so that the seriousness is offset with some rather spiky moments.”
Mike Westbrook: “The thing that’s obviously fascinating for me, is the direction in which the lyrics push the music. Rarely do they fit into the sort of conventional forms of usual songwriting. And also I think what we should, in all the emphasis on Kate as a lyricist, we shound’t forget – as a vocalist; how Kate has risen to this challenge of being able to interpret this music to the extend now, that she can really cope with incredible difficult music.”
When we get to ‘Strike’, the sixth and last movement of ‘The Serpent Hit, the Westbrooks departs from the structure the listener has become familiar with. The end of ‘Trigger’, the 5th movement, is also the end of the world. The bomb has been triggered, and there is noting left but an unstable diminished chord. But little by little the 15 minute movements returns to familiar ground, and the piece ends where it all started. Here is the first movement:
I was fortunate enough to hear Mike and Kate Westbrook live once. It was on April 26 2019 in the Georgenkirche in Halle, Germany. On the repertoire was the entire ‘Granite’ album, their most recent release at the time i believe. The Westbrooks were joined by Roz Harding on saxophone, Jesse Molins and Matthew North on guitars, Billie Bottle on electric bass and Coach York on drums. A unique thing about that performance, was that the spoken parts had been translated into german for the occation. The first part of the concert wasn’t very good, and I remember beeing quite dissapointed doing the intermission. The performance was unfocused, and they even had to stop in the middle of a song. But after the intermission it all came together, and they gave a great performance. I was even lucky enough to have a short conversation with Mike after the concert.
Recommended albums
Mike Westbrook: Citadel/Room 315
Mike Westbrook Orchestra: The Cortège
Kate & Mike Westbrook: London Bridge is Broken Down
Mike Westbrook: The Westbrook Blake (Bright as Fire)
One of my favorite albums at the moment is UK trumpeter and composer Laura Jurd’s new album Rites & Revelations. It was released in October last year. All of her albums is something new, and sounds unmistakably like Jurd at the same time – always exploring, one never knows what comes next, and this new album is no exception.
Jurd is generally described as a jazz musician, but she is much more than that. Drawing inspiration not only from jazz (new and old), but also, rock, folk and classical music. The folk and rock inspiration is dominating on the new album, but there are plenty of jazz improvisation as well.
Unusual instrumentations is a common theme between most of her albums. This time the band consists of Laura Jurd on trumpet, Martin Green on accordion, Ultan O’Brien on violin and viola, Ruth Goller on electric bass, and Corrie Dick on Drums. Although the press release says that the album was recorded “mostly live with minimal overdubs”, the production is an important part of the album too.
There are far between great composers in jazz – not surprisingly, since the genrers main focus is improvisation and instrumental virtuosity. Laura Jurd is one of the few who can really write. The music ranges from catchy folk tunes like You Again to noisy improvisations like Life, to the Ellingtonian Praying Mantis. Like Duke Ellingtons many suites that he composed from the 50s on, the album is held together by an overall mood; and like Ellington too, she manages to combine improvisation and composition into a coherent pieces of music. Highly recommended album!
Last week, I had the great pleasure hearing the WDR Big Band live for the first time. The concert took place at the beautiful WDR Funkhaus in Cologne on September 20th, under the title ‘Cologne Composers Combine’. The two combined composers were Heiner Schmitz and Stefan Pfeifer-Galilea who conducted one half of the concert each.
The precision and clarity the band plays with is extraordinary, as were the number of great soloists. I was particularly delighted to hear trumpeter Ruud Breuls and tenor saxophonist Paul Heller, who were both part of the late Bob Brookmeyer’s New Art Orchestra back in the 2000s. Other soloists include trumpeter Andy Hardener, trombonists Ludwig Nuss and Andy Hunter (who also played valve trombone on one tune), and pianist Billy Test.
The two composers made a good contrast – Stefan Pfeifer-Galilea music is firmly rooted in the classic big band tradition, whereas Heuner Schmitz has a more modern approach. Both of them had written some great music for the band that showcased all the fine soloists.
The history of the WDR Big Band goes all the way back to 1947. At that time it was known as the Kölner Rundfunk-Tanzorchester. In 1957 Kurt Edelhagen was commissioned to set up a jazz band at WDR, and the two co existed until 1972 when the Edelhagen orchestra was dismantled. In 1980 the dance band was transformed into a jazz band modeled after Edelhagen’s band, and the name was changed to WDR Big Band. If you want to know more about Kurt Edelhagen, WDR has made a fine documentary that can be watched here.
Pianisten og komponisten Leo Mathisen er en af dansk jazz’ mest kendte og elskede personligheder. Her, ca 75 år efter han afsluttede sin karriere, er flere af hans melodier stadig kendte af en stor del af befolkningen. Hans popularitet skyldes uden tvivl, at han var en dygtig entertainer; men han var også en kreativ pianist og komponist som stadig fortjener at blive lyttet til.
For et års tid siden, faldt jeg over en række af hans håndskrevne partiturer og stemmer – heriblandt flere uindspillede. Min første tanke var, at det kunne være sjovt at spille dem; men flere ting gør det ikke så let at udføre i praksis: Musikken er skrevet for mange forskellige størrelser ensembler, og tydeligt er det også, at noderne kun er lavet til ‘intern brug’, da Leo aldrig skrev klaverstemmer til sig selv, og trommestemmen, hvis der er nogen, heller ikke er anvendelig for andre end ham der oprindeligt bruge den. I stedet har jeg valgt at bearbejde fire af numrene for standard 5444 bigband i nye versioner, der ligger så tæt på originalerne som muligt.
Herunder, kan du læse om, og lytte til, de fire numre i de originale versioner. Bigbands der er interesserede i at spille arrangementerne kan kontakte mig via mail for mere information.
Slow Motion er komponeret i 1946. En meget fin komposition i AABA form, som modulerer en stor terts i B-stykket (fra F dur til A mol). Efter præsentationen af temaet, følger et ‘call and responce’ afsnit mellem henholdsvis messingblæserne og en improviseret tenorsax solo. Her bruger Mathisen en effekt som jeg ikke har hørt/set andre steder, nemlig at lade en trompet med dæmper spille en overstemme til de øvrige messingblæsere. En lignende effekt bruger han i øvrigt også i sit arrangement af Take the A Train fra 1944.
Eksempel 1: Slow Motion og Take the A Train
Jungle Party, eller Congo som den også hedder, er fra 1942 og viser Mathisen fra sin mest kreative side. Her kombinerer han inspiration fra Stravinskys Sacre du Printemps med Ellington, og resultatet minder på ingen måde om et typisk swing nummer. Han arbejder bl.a. med 5 takts perioder, og der er ikke nogen toneart i traditionel forstand.
Eksempel 2: Sacre og Jungle Party
Terrific Rhythm er indspillet i 1942, og ligesom Slow Motion også i AABA form; men til forskel fra de fleste andre numre i den form, er A-stykkerne kun 7 takter (i stedet for 8). Resultatet er, at nummeret aldrig rigtig falder til to, da det hele tiden bider sig selv i halen. Nummeret benytter samme type modulation som Slow Motion. Interessant er også de mange afsnit for klaver og bas duo, som formentlig er inspireret af Ellington og Jimmie Blantons duo indspilning et par år tidligere.
Londonderry Air, den kendete folkemelodi, arrangeret af Mathisen i 1945. Det er hvad man den gang betegnede som ‘sweet’. Påfaldende er fraværet af improviserede soli. Til gengæld får vi melodien spillet af basunen i Tommy Dorsey stil, og som duo for tenorsax og klaver.
Tak til Tore Mortensen og Jazzcentret i Aalborg, samt til Tobias Bendixen og JazzDanmark.
Nearly 50 years after Ellington’s death, Duke’s music still continues to inspire young musicians. One of them is Laura Jurd. For those of you who haven’t heard about her, she is a British award-winning trumpet player, composer and bandleader. Very active on the UK scene, Laura has developed a reputation as one of the most creative young musician in recent years.
There are many similarities between Ellington’s and Jurd’s music. Just as the blues is always a fundamental element in Ellington’s music, Jurd likewise draws on folk music from her heritage. She doesn’t accept boundaries in music either, and her music reaches far beyond so called jazz music.
If you listen through the 8 albums or so she has made so far, and the many recordings available on YouTube, you will find several pieces related to Ellington. One of them is Billy Strayhorn’s composition Absinthe from 1963. She recorded it for the album To the Earth, released in 2020, with her regular quartet Dinosaur, together with 6 of her own compositions.
This new interpretation of this relatively obscure Strayhorn tune, is done with much respect to the original, but at the same time, the four musicians manages to give it a modern touch. It’s also quite remarkable how well Strayhorn’s tune fits in with Jurd’s own compositions.
Like Absinthe, the next track also originates from the Afro Bossa album. It is Ellington’s own composition Purple Gazelle. Jurd recorded a duo version for YouTube in 2020 with drummer Corrie Dick, also af member of the quartet Dinosaur.
There are many similarities between Jurd’s playing and the style of the Ellington trumpets. When you listen, you will notice a lot of growl and plunger work, witch often reminds me of Ray Nance. She also does valve effects, like squeezing the note and making tremolos and trills using alternative fingering, much like Rex Steward did (think of Frantic Fantasy for example).
Like Duke’s musicians, Laura also likes to invent new sounds on the instrument. On Purple Gazelle you will hear a short section (0:43) where she plays with a buzzing sound. This is done by inserting a kazoo into the bell. I have never heard anyone else do that.
In 2021, she made a solo recording of Absinthe for YouTube. Here you can hear her play some pedal notes. Every trumpet player can do that, but it’s rarely used as anything more than a technical exercise. Here she implies these low notes to good effect, with good sound and intonation, and so did Rex Steward occasionally back in the days (think of the cadenza from Boy meets horn for example.)
The last example is Jurd’s own composition Jump Cut Shuffle, written for the Ligeti String Quartet in 2016, and included on the album Stepping Back, Jumping In, released in 2019. The piece is inspired by Ellington and Strayhorn’s The Queen’s Suite from 1959. Here is a short video by Laura explaining the idea behind the piece.
As Jurd states in the video, it is not an arrangement of The Queen’s Suite. Instead, she has taken small sections from Ellington and Strayhorn’s work and used them as a starting point for her own composition. Although not an arrangement, there are several easily recognizable bits of Ellingtonia in the piece. The most obvious, is probably Paul Gonsalves’ break heard several times during the Northern Lights movement. It is first presented solo in the viola (1:35), and later as a canon between all four strings (5:41). The beginning of Lightning Bugs and Frogs is also clearly heard as a cannon (1:07), played pizzicato by all four string players. There are several others. Try for yourself and see how many you can find.
And if you haven’t had enough Laura Jurd at this point, i recommend listening to her latest album, released this september, entitled The Big Friendly Album.
Recommended albums by Laura Jurd:
Laura Jurd: The Big Friendly Album (Big Friendly Records, 2022)
