Jazz In New York Part Two: From Swing To Be-Bop
The follow up to our 2015 sell-out show at Cadogan Hall:
Hear the Swing Era evolve into the exciting sounds of
Be-Bop before your very ears!
The show features a superb selection of music from bands big and small that made New York the world capital of Jazz in a period of radical and rapid musical revolution.
In the first half there will be swinging small band music from Artie Shaw’s Gramercy 5 (with the first ever use of jazz harpsichord) as well as John Kirby’s Orchestra, whose intricate arrangements were on the cusp of be-bop. Also featured are the astonishing sounds of Raymond Scott’s Quintette (whose massive selling records such as “Powerhouse” found a second life as soundtracks to Looney Tunes cartoons).
Enrico Tomasso’s dazzling Swingtette will be topped and tailed by the seventeen piece Echoes of Ellington Orchestra playing some of Duke’s greatest works from the 1930s and also featuring the music of his famous “Blanton-Webster” band from the 1940s - considered by many to be Duke’s finest ever line-up.
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Programme Includes: Duke Ellington's Braggin' In Brass, Take The A Train and Dizzy Gillespie's Manteca.
Music Featured In The Show:
Enrico Tomasso’s dazzling Swingtette will be topped and tailed by the seventeen piece Echoes of Ellington Orchestra playing some of Duke’s greatest works from the 1930s and also featuring the music of his famous “Blanton-Webster” band from the 1940s - considered by many to be Duke’s finest ever line-up.
The second half begins with the kind of music you’d have heard if you’d been present at the legendary Minton’s Club jam sessions - renowned as the hothouse and laboratory where Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and drummer Kenny Clarke came forth to turn the world of jazz on its head. Our concert concludes with a set from the Gillespiana Big Band - Jazz blended brilliantly with the rhythms of Cuba.
The music is recreated with dazzling virtuosity by a mix of Jazz Repertory Company regulars and some of the hottest young players on the London scene. So come and join us, or in the words of your typical 1940s New York hipster - “Hey alligators, advance the spark – is you in the know or are you a solid bringer-downer, you dig?”
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Picture: Louis Armstrong with the 6 year old Enrico Tomasso.