Breaking Some Boundaries

Don’t get me started . . .

I’m putting this band together, making a thousand and one decisions, and I get some “suggestions” from a comrade in Atlanta (you know who you are) about expanding the tune list into areas that are decidedly non-big band.

I’ve been writing for the 4 horn band since 2000, pretty steadily, using Mustang Sally as the central focus and going outward from there. The result is a book of about 350 tunes that cover a lot of territory, from Asleep at the Wheel (Choo Choo Caboogie) to Tower of Power to Elvis to Sinatra to Motown and on and on. This book is based on what we’ve been asked to play over the years, and it seems like it hit the spot for certain folks having weddings.

When I decided to revive the old big band, formerly the New Flamingo Swing Orchestra, I had no intention of expanding the genre list into some of the Original Recipe areas. Gradually, however I realized that with all these horns it just makes sense to take some of the OR charts and, regardless of genre, fold them into the mix for the big band. Lately I’ve done this kind of upgrade for Tell It Like It Is, What Is Hip, Always Look at the Bright Side of Life, even Mustang Sally.

The idea is to have a great dinner set, ballroom dance kind of stuff, then sneak in a few post-big band things as the evening goes on.

On one level it is truly insane to set up an 11-piece band with singers additional in this tanking economy. On the other hand, I keep reminding myself that the Depression of the thirties was the golden age for musicians, because those who could hire them hired lavishly. Here are last month’s additions to the book:

It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Motion--Benny Carter wrote this chart for Maria Muldaur in the late seventies, and the innocent Miss Marilyn degenerates when she sings it.

I Just Want to Celebrate--Rare Earth!

You’re the Boss--Brian Setzer doing Elvis and Ann-Margaret

Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You--Four Seasons, before it was a hotel

Signed, Sealed & Delivered--Recently popularized in some political campaign

The Curley Shuffle--Back in the Saddle Band, surely you must remember

and the holy trinity of Tower of Power tunes:

Down to the Nightclub

You’re Still a Young Man

What Is Hip?

-----------------------------

Now if I were hiring a wedding band, I’d go with the most versatile tune list and hope they can pull it off. (I’ve heard enough rock bands try to swing to Satin Doll to know that this is the direction we have to go rather than the other way.)

-------------------------------

In other news, we are recording in Los Angeles. Best cats for sightreading, best studio rates, and an opportunity to record with some of the cats who did the demo recording at KingSound Studios back in 1981. Still active are Tom Scott (who was not on the demo but played most of the gigs afterward on lead trumpet), Steve Johnson on trombone, Charlie Oreña on baritone. My brother Jimmy on drums, who was in the Navy back then I think, who will play a kit supplied by the great Jimmy Ford. Going to nail down some dates when Steve gets back from Bay Area gigs next Monday.

Thinking about Kenton

I found this clip on YouTube and it might explain why, fight it as I will, I’m just a tiny satellite that once orbited Planet Stan. I was always convincing myself that I wanted to play in the Basie band, but I never got close. Kenton was another story.

I was at a concert where Stan expressed an interest in my father’s work, back when I was 14. (My dad finished the spec chart a month before he died.) Kenton expressed a passing interest in my alto playing and gave me enough encouragement to really set me on fire. I practiced more than ever, did a few gigs with my dad’s friends playing baritone, and listened to a lot of music constantly.

That was when we were in Connecticut, and we were to go back to California soon after the Kenton concert, then back to Connecticut, where my father died.

It was only later that I learned that my dad had a big band that used to rehearse when I was 12.

So, on this YouTube clip there are Quin Davis, Kim Frizell, Willie Maiden, all three of whom had played in that band, back in Orange County.

Mike Vax, the lead trumpet player, was the leader of the band I played in at the 1970 Kenton clinic in Redlands. Ray Brown, one of the jazz trumpeters, was the only arranging teacher I ever studied with besides my dad, at Cabrillo College, outside Santa Cruz.

Ramon Lopez, the guy playing congas, was my roommate when Dick Shearer, the lead trombonist and band wrangler, called me for the gig on high baritone. (Unlike most big bands, the Kenton band had one alto, two tenors, and two baris, one of whom used to double on bass sax.) Dick had heard me at a concert in Santa Cruz where the Cabrillo Band opened for Stan. The year was 1974. Stan died in 1979.

And of course, though he’s not on this clip, Tony Campise lives right here in Austin, and doesn’t get nearly the respect he ought to for all he’s done.

I think I’ll listen to “Live at the Tropicana,” one of the most straight-ahead of the Kenton recordings. Then maybe a little Basie.