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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Symphonic “jazz” compositions, big bands and holiday blasts

The American Composers Orchestra readings of short symphonic works by jazz-oriented composers which I wrote of in my CityArts column and posted about here are now available to hear, thanks to Lara Pelligrinelli at NPR’s A Blog Supreme. The 23rd annual BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra concert, featuring “New Works for Big Band” and the naming (not yet publicized) of the winner of the 11th Annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize. I’m looking for a third item regarding really large scale opportunities for jazz composers (and listeners), but the student competitions, festival appearances, and other emanations of a tradition which by the logic of the marketplace ought to be pretty much over are too plentiful to start to mention (ok, here’s one: Savannah’s 6th Annual Patriotic Big Band Salute on July 4 starring Jeremy Davis and the Fabulous Equinox Orchestra).


Not that symphonic compositions, writings for big band and holiday blow-outs are all the same, but I idly wonder if continued interest in massive ensembles is a result of multitudes of jazz-college graduates looking for the comforts of company. Even Duke Ellington asked Will Big Bands Ever Come Back? in 1965, as the original title for an album which included this fine rendition of the American anthem by George Gershwin, “Rhapsody In Blue” (thanks to A Blog Supreme’s David Brent Johnson for the heads up on this). 

 

Too mellow? Then here’s a bigger bang — by one of Ellington’s loyalist acolytes, Charles Mingus, as played by the Mingus Big Band, winners of the Jazz Journalists Association’s 2011 Award for Large Ensemble of the Year. 
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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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