[poseidonsvoice]

I grew up playing the Baritone sax in a large jazz ensemble. List your favorite well recorded Big Band Jazz LPs here. Does GRP (the record label) ever put out their stuff on LP?

Thanks,

Anand.

[neobop]

Count Basie was always a favorite.  I love the precision playing.  Where Duke was lush, the Count was poppin.  There are a ton of great old Basie records on Verve and Roulette.  Li'l Ol' Groovemaker (Verve 1963) is a favorite, but there are plenty more and they sound great.  Chairman of the Board (1958 Roulette) is another.  It's hard to go wrong with a good copy of any of these.  The later ones on Pablo are also excellent.  If you're into vocals you'll find the band with Frank Sinatra, Ella, Sarah, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr.  Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstein, and even Lambert Hendricks and Ross.

Ellington was a national treasure.  He won 12 Grammy awards.  Just about any recording from around 1958 on, is worth checking out.  A couple favorites of mine are Ellington Indigo (1958 Columbia), Newport 1958 (Columbia),  Black, Brown and Beige (1958 Columbia), Back to Back (1959 Verve), but there are so many more I can't begin.  The sound is good on all the ones I listed, but sometimes I find that I have to adjust arm height for old pressings.

Although Dizzy had a big band for awhile, I'm going to wind this up with Maynard Ferguson, Screamer Extraordinaire.  I like his earlier recordings on Roulette.  Maynard '61, Straightaway Jazz Themes, Maynard '63, '64, and others around that time are great.  Later on he got more commercial and I lost interest.
neo 

[poseidonsvoice]

Neo,

Thanks. Time to go shopping again!

Best,

Anand.
PS: some of the favorites you mentioned are 180g reissues 45rpm at elusive disc.

[jimdgoulding]

I think GRP has but can't remember anything in particular.  Here's one for you that is currently available, I believe, The Artist Selects- Gerald Wilson (EMI).  Just one thing you need to know about this very excellent composer and his pals  . . turn UP the volume!

Contains great tunes of his like Viva Tirado and Blues for Yna Yna, etc. etc. and a kickin Milestones.  Haven't heard of him?  This is your lucky day.

[richidoo]

GRP did do vinyl back when. Dave Grusin was one of their big acts. I think they even did some direct to disc recordings.  Our mutual friend stereofool has some of the old GRP vinyl jazz sessions.

As a bari player, you will want to get the original Mulligan Tentette record, with Chet Baker. I have a 80s reissue on LP and a CD copy also. The CD is really really bad. I have a lot of Mulligan on LP. I would recommend Birth of the Cool because it has a bari in it, but it is some of Mulligans worst playing on record. But he gets a pass for writing all the music... 

NC (Raleigh) native Pee Wee Moore played bari in Dizzy Gillespie's 2nd big band of the 50s. My favorite LP of that band is "Live at Newport." Very powerful, with Dizzy at his peak trumpet and wiseass antics.

"Ellington at Newport" is essential to the big band listener. History was made that night in 56 and Ellington's fading career was back on track. He was soon on the cover of Time mag and touring with Brubeck, the top jazz act of the day. Should be easy to find this on LP it was Ellington's "Thriller."

Another of my favorites is "Basie at Birdland" on Roulette. It is a nice sounding LP. Maybe the funnest of all the ones I listed. This is the greatest Basie band, some argue the greatest big band ever playing live at their best venue. People would wait outside in the snow for hours to get in. Birdland would serve hot coffee to those waiting in line. The CD reissue has 8 more tracks than the LP but I've not hear that.

Stan Kenton recorded some awesome LPs on Capitol Records and later on his own label. In the 70s he recorded some more modern arrangements of older compositions and lots of new compositions. "Live in Europe" and "Stan Kenton Today" are excellent music, although the sound quality can vary from recording to recording and these were very popular records with college and high school music students so LP condition also varies.

Maria Schneider "has" a jazz big band in NYC. She writes new original compositions and records new material on audiophile quality recordings all the time, she has about 5-6 big band CDs out now. The musicians are all first call players and a few (modern day) stars (that you probably never heard of.) Her record "Concert in the Garden" is great, but it's only on CD. 

[jimdgoulding]

I can second Maria Schneider and her album "Sky Blue" on the Artist Share label.   Have you heard any of Gil Evans' music?  Maria is a kindred spirit I would say.

[richidoo]

Yeah, Jim, Gil is great.  Maria was his protege and assistant at the end of his life.

The Miles records with Gil's big band are very sweet Anand. Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain. Don't let your wife hear Sketches, or it'll be a very looooong night!

Maynard Ferguson Trumpet Rhapsody is a burner if you can find it. Gene Krupa with Anita ODay and Roy Eldridge was the "big thing" before bop, I just have the greatest hits record, it is fun. Jimmy Lunceford had an innovative but edgy (bad boy) dance band of the day. I don't know how available the old records are. Try the names on Pandora before you chase down vinyl, some of it is an acquired taste. It's 70 years old now!

[jimdgoulding]

Don't know if you guys ever saw this.  Might be of some use.  Hope so.

http://www.hifizine.com/2010/12/the-individualism-of-gil-evans/

[neobop]

Although not quite a big band, these 7 musicians sound like a big band on Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth.  This is a must-have super classic and the sound is great on the orig Impluse record.  George Barrow plays bari, along with Oliver Nelson, Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Roy Haynes. 

Other bari players to check out are the late Cecil Payne who appears as a sideman on lots of LPs.  I have a 1976 recording of his called Bird Gets the Worm (Muse) - sounds good, although Muse was sometimes inconsistent. 

Howard Johnson is a great  bari and tuba player.  He played on all kinds of LPs with everyone from John Lennon, The Band, to Miles and Dexter Gordon (Sophisticated Giant).    He's on a Gil Evans LP called Svengali and another called Where Flamingos Fly.  The later is an eerie session, like a premonition of eternity. Many records with a bari tend to be a large group and have big band-like arrangements.  Dexter's Sophisticated Giant is like that. 

Pepper Adams was another great bari player.  He was in the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band and appears on lots of LPs.  There are around 20 with him as leader.  Jilian (Enja 1975) and The Master (Muse 1980) are both good.
neo

[dB Cooper]

This record is outstanding both from the recording and performance standpoints. I heard the opening cut ("Road Time Shuffle") on the radio originally. I became a lifelong fan in ten seconds. It's that good. Toshiko Akiyoshi was married to Charlie Mariano for a time, was in the Mingus band, and incorporates tinges of Japanese music in some of her compositions. (The song I mentioned is a straight-up hard driving swing number though.) Saw this band live three times. Lew Tabackin is my favorite sax player and is a bear on flute too.



The CD release ditched the beautiful cover artwork for some unfathomable reason 



If you like big band- buy this. Period. Trust me on this one. Within the first thirty seconds you'll look like this: 

[jimdgoulding]

Nice rec, db.  You da man.

[S Clark]

Just found and bought a sealed copy of "Courtesan". . .  not cheap, but what the hey. 

[neobop]

Toshiko Akiyoshi was married to Charlie Mariano for a time, was in the Mingus band, and incorporates tinges of Japanese music in some of her compositions. (The song I mentioned is a straight-up hard driving swing number though.) Saw this band live three times. Lew Tabackin is my favorite sax player and is a bear on flute too.

Toshiko was later married to Lew Tabackin.  Maybe she had a thing for sax players?    
The image of a bear playing the flute is kinda funny, Lew's a good player though.
neo

[dB Cooper]

They still are married AFAIK. S Clark, sound off here or PM me and let me know what you think! Did you buy the vinyl or CD?

Any Bob Florence fans here btw?

[CSI]

"Ellington at Newport" is essential to the big band listener. History was made that night in 56 and Ellington's fading career was back on track. He was soon on the cover of Time mag and touring with Brubeck, the top jazz act of the day. Should be easy to find this on LP it was Ellington's "Thriller."

Younger readers may not be hip to it but there was an era when the honor of a Time Magazine cover was a very big deal, particularly for someone in the Arts. When Dave Brubeck's cover hit the stands Duke Ellington was the first to knock on Brubeck's hotel room door to congratulate him. Brubeck was crushed. "Duke, you should have been the first jazzman on the cover of Time, not me!" was his comment. Happily, Ellington got his own cover not too long after but most fans, then and now, would agree with Brubeck's assessment of the proper order of things. It is nice, though, to see DB stilll out there touring. There is big bash planned for his 92nd birthday next month.

[Chazro]

Huge fan of the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabakin Big Band!  I own:

Kogun
Long Yellow Road
Farewell (To Mingus)
Roadtime (Live)
Insight

I prefer the band when she co-led with her husband Lew Tabackin.  She recorded a few featuring him as the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra that I own:

Ten Gallon Shuffle
European Memoir

All of the above I have on vinyl, I also have a few CD's recorded later on that truthfully, I felt to be inferior to her earlier work:

Carnegie Hall Concert
Desert lady/Fantasy
Hiroshima Rising From The Abyss

To get a taste of this amazing band, the compilation CD; Novus series '70 features tunes from the 1st group of albums I listed and is absolutely killa!  On vinyl, if I could only pick one, I'd unhesitatingly recommend 'Long Yellow Road' (Good luck finding it, I actually own 3 copies(!), but I purchased the last one over a decade ago!;)

Been a fan of the great Howard Johnson since the 1st time I heard him in Taj Mahal's live record featuring the tuba horn section; 'The Real Thing'.  If you wanna hear a GREAT Jazz record, that will test yr rig to boot, pick up 'Howard Johnson & Gravity - Gravity!!!'.  A tuba-based little big band that truly smokes!

[blutto]

Count Basie was always a favorite.  I love the precision playing.  Where Duke was lush, the Count was poppin.  There are a ton of great old Basie records on Verve and Roulette.  Li'l Ol' Groovemaker (Verve 1963) is a favorite, but there are plenty more and they sound great.  Chairman of the Board (1958 Roulette) is another.  It's hard to go wrong with a good copy of any of these.  The later ones on Pablo are also excellent.  If you're into vocals you'll find the band with Frank Sinatra, Ella, Sarah, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr.  Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstein, and even Lambert Hendricks and Ross.

Ellington was a national treasure.  He won 12 Grammy awards.  Just about any recording from around 1958 on, is worth checking out.  A couple favorites of mine are Ellington Indigo (1958 Columbia), Newport 1958 (Columbia),  Black, Brown and Beige (1958 Columbia), Back to Back (1959 Verve), but there are so many more I can't begin.  The sound is good on all the ones I listed, but sometimes I find that I have to adjust arm height for old pressings.

Although Dizzy had a big band for awhile, I'm going to wind this up with Maynard Ferguson, Screamer Extraordinaire.  I like his earlier recordings on Roulette.  Maynard '61, Straightaway Jazz Themes, Maynard '63, '64, and others around that time are great.  Later on he got more commercial and I lost interest.
neo

....gotta agree with the Count on Roulette ( and there are also several Roulette records from that period in which Joe Williams is the headliner that are just magnificant...and well worth searching out...and oddly enough a recording where B B King is backed by the Count Basie orchestra from that period that is also a treasure....)....great performances , great engineering and if you are lucky to get early pressings, great recordings....these are also available on a repro label called Emus which generally have clean vinyl though lacking the ultimate slam of the original pressings....

...and have a real soft spot for any Carla Bley backed by a largish ensemble...ohhh and also Henry Mancini who was at a weird nexus of having the budget, the recording facilities, and the opportunities to do some real fun high quality stuff ( love his sense of humour )...

Cheers

blutto

[S Clark]

They still are married AFAIK. S Clark, sound off here or PM me and let me know what you think! Did you buy the vinyl or CD?

Any Bob Florence fans here btw?

VINYL, BABY!!! Courtesan just arrived, split the seal, and got it spinning now.  Wow, not what I was expecting, but then again, I really had no expectations.  Jumps from cool, to orchestral melancholy, to tongue in cheek, to bop. It's not an easy album to categorize. And to top it off, it's a nice dynamic recording.  Thanks for the recommendation, dB.
Scott

[poseidonsvoice]

VINYL, BABY!!! Courtesan just arrived, split the seal, and got it spinning now.  Wow, not what I was expecting, but then again, I really had no expectations.  Jumps from cool, to orchestral melancholy, to tongue in cheek, to bop. It's not an easy album to categorize. And to top it off, it's a nice dynamic recording.  Thanks for the recommendation, dB.
Scott

I just ordered this through Amazon, mint minus copy. Seller states he played it only once. Thanks dB for the recommendation.

Best,
Anand.

[jimdgoulding]

Charles Mingus.  May as well start with Blues & Roots (Atlantic).  Tijuana Moods (RCA) is a larger and very impassioned bunch of players.  Charlie Mariano plays beautiful alto sax on Black Saint and The Sinner Lady (Impulse) and I do mean beautiful.

Poseidon, Mingus uses the heck out of the baritone sax in most everything.