For his advanced composing and arranging students, saxophonist, composer, arranger and educator Bill Kirchner recently compiled a list of recommended big band CDs recorded since 1955. Kirchner teaches at The New School and Manhattan School of Music in New York City and New Jersey City University. Bill agreed to let me share the list with Rifftides readers, who may find some of their favorites but not others.
RECOMMENDED BIG BAND CDs, 1955-PRESENT–Bill Kirchner
Muhal Richard Abrams: The Hearinga Suite (Black Saint)
Count Basie: April in Paris, Frankly Basie (both Verve), Chairman of the Board (Roulette)
Carla Bley: Big Band Theory (Watt)
Bob Brookmeyer: New Works–Celebration (Challenge)
Miles Davis-Gil Evans: Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain (all Columbia)
Duke Ellington: The Far East Suite, …and His Mother Called Him Bill (both RCA/Bluebird)
Don Ellis: Tears of Joy (Columbia/Wounded Bird)
Gil Evans: The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions (Blue Note), The Individualism of Gil Evans (Verve)
Clare Fischer: Thesaurus (Atlantic/Koch)
Stan Getz: Big Band Bossa Nova (arr. Gary McFarland), Change of Scenes (w/ the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band) (both Verve)
Joe Henderson: Joe Henderson Big Band (Verve)
Woody Herman: Giant Steps (Fantasy/Original Jazz Classics)
Thad Jones-Mel Lewis: Consummation (Blue Note)
Stan Kenton: Contemporary Concepts (Capitol)
Joe Lovano (with the WDR Big Band arr. by Mike Abene): Symphonica (Blue Note)
Charles Mingus: Let My Children Hear Music (Columbia)
Mingus Big Band: The Essential Mingus Big Band (Dreyfus)
Gerry Mulligan: Verve Jazz Masters 36 (Verve)
Oliver Nelson: Verve Jazz Masters 48 (Verve)
Buddy Rich: The New One, Mercy, Mercy (both Pacific Jazz)
Maria Schneider: Evanescence (Enja)
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: Up From the Skies (arr. Jim McNeely), Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard (both Planet Arts)
Kenny Wheeler: Music for Large and Small Ensembles (ECM)
I suggested to Kirchner that, despite Bill Holman’s splendid work on the Kenton Contemporary Concepts album, one of Holman’s own CDs should be on the list. He replied,
As much as I respect what he’s done on his own, I think that the Kenton CC album shows him at his very best–and is for students the best introduction to Holman’s work. (In the same way that Stravinsky did great things all during his career, but never wrote anything “better” than The Rite of Spring.)
If you submit a suggested addition to Bill’s list, kindly give a musical justification. For our purposes, “I like it” is not justification. Please use the Comments link at the end of the item. When we receive enough replies, we’ll post a followup.
I second the motion on Terry Gibbs’ Dream Band, and add several more for consideration:
Listen to Art Farmer and the Orchestra (the LP is on Mercury) w/ arrangements by Oliver Nelson. “Rue Prevail” alone is worth the price of admission.
You Better Believe It – Gerald Wilson w/ Richard “Groove” Holmes and Mel Lewis on drums, Harold Land, Carmell Jones, etc.
Gillespiana – Dizzy still in top form playing Lalo Schifrin’s suite – and whatever happened to Leo Wright?
(Leo Wright, Gillespie’s alto saxophonist from 1959 to 1962, died in Vienna in 1991 — DR)
I would recommend an album long-forgotten which was highly influential at the time, the Don Ellis “Autumn,” catching this band playing some of its best stuff in 4/4! Part live, part studio, I’ve always found it superior to “Tears of Joy” and “Electric Bath,” and possibly a better snapshot of this important big band.
I agree with you, Doug, (and disagree with you, Bill), about the omission of Bill Holman’s later work…so much of which I consider superior to so many of the recordings that did make the list. I’ve always had the feeling, Bill, that you were never all that drawn to Holman’s writing beyond an interest in the constructive aspect of linear counterpoint…which he certainly had in place in his “skill set” by 1955. But as someone who has sat in on numerous weekly rehearsals of the Bill Holman Band over the last 25 years, I think his “skill set” has only broadened and deepened.
The Terry Gibbs band, which of course would add more Holman to the list, represents to me an important grown-up expression of the spirit of the Woody Herman Second Herd: Not quite as manic, more focused, more mature, as the players grew into their thirties. Take any one of the Verve or Mercury LPs and get it on the list, man!
And Sauter-Finegan…two of the greatest, most thoughtful composer-arrangers and their expression of the big band as a kind of concert pops orchestra. Of their post-1955 recordings, I would nominate either “Under Analysis” or “Memories of Goodman and Miller” (in which the old war horses are redressed in concert settings).
And Johnny Richards. To me, the recent Mosaic remastering of “Rites of Diablo” is an absolute revelation. I’m sure to some, this is overwrought exotica, but I hear a fully-formed and successful 20th Century wind ensemble concept that sits well in my mind with the magnificent Gil Evans recordings of the same late ’50s period.
Why didn’t Mr. Kirchner add at least one of Harry James’ albums from the late 50′s (on Capitol) or early to mid-60′s (Verve)? There is one I really enjoy a lot: http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=443264 — The 2nd & 3rd Big Band Sound of Harry James (both on Verve) with some excellent works by Thad Jones and others. This is great stuff for young arrangers — who usually don’t know much –, especially the tracks where a dixieland band is embedded in a big band, à la call and response (The James Boys). Thad did a great thing with In The Mood where Harry is playing unexpectedly free, going even mad for some time. Listening to this is like dusting off the book shelve.
Some of the most advanced writing you will find on Gil Evans’ album for Impulse: Into The Hot with compositions by Cecil Taylor and John Carisi (three charts each). Okay, this is no fun music at all; and it might horrify some of the youngsters — I’m only kidding here.
The very first work of Clare Fisher is actually a cameo appearance of this imaginative arranger: Portrait Of Duke Ellington with Dizzy Gillespie (1960). Mr. Fisher isn’t mentioned in the liners to the LP. This is outstanding big band arranging, because it demonstrates very well how one can successfully break up the usual sections of brass versus woodwinds. I only say Caravan, my favorite track from that album.
No such list is complete without Anthony Braxton’s Creative Orchestra Music 1976 (Arista), recently reissued as part of Mosaic’s Complete Arista Recordings box.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31679
“An improvising composer with a thorough knowledge of American and European music from Ellington to Ives to Kurt Weill to Iannis Xenakis, Braxton’s Creative Orchestra Music 1976 is a diverse run-through of his capabilities as an orchestrator, starting with the hard-swinging big band number Op. 51.”
A Jimmy Lunceford anthology (e.g. “Lunceford Special”, Columbia/Legacy) would fit nicely, I think.
Also, “Atomic Basie”, not so much because ‘I like it’ – actually I do not – but as a testimony of an aestethic turning point in Basie’s career.
And can we really leave out Dizzy Gillespie’s 1946 big band, with its unmistakable blend of rough and refined?