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What is a big band. Big band (Big band) - what is it and what are big bands? The main characteristic of the bebop jazz style

Big band (English big band - large orchestra), a type of jazz instrumental ensemble, the number of musicians in which usually ranges from ten to seventeen people. Formed in the late 1920s, it consists of three orchestral groups: saxophones - clarinets (Reels), brass instruments (Brass, later groups of pipes and trombones stood out), rhythm section (Rhythm section - piano, double bass, guitar, drums musical instruments).

The heyday of big band music, which began in the United States in the 1930s, is associated with a period of mass enthusiasm for swing - impulsive, energetic dance music that replaced the traditional Negro old time jazz. Later, up to the present time, big bands performed and perform music of various styles. However, in essence, the era of big bands begins much earlier and dates back to the days of American minstrel theaters of the second half of the 19th century, which often increased the performing staff to several hundred actors and musicians.

The evolution of the big band has an even more direct connection with the archaic New Orleans marching bands (marching bands), ragtime bands and military brass bands that played on the streets, squares, parks, all kinds of entertainment establishments and salons (society bands), on river steamboats (riverboat bands). They were widely known in New Orleans at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. marching bands such as Olympia Band, Imperial Band, Magnolia Band, Tuxedo Band, Henry Allen Orchestra, Armand Pyron and John Robichaux Salon Bands, Faith Marable and Charlie Crete's Riverboat Bands, Jack Papa Lane's Dixieland Band, Buddy Bolden's Ragtime Band , the blues band of William Christopher Handy (nicknamed the father of the blues) are characteristic representatives of early orchestral jazz.

The Negro composer and bandmaster Will Marion Cook experimented with salon orchestras, creating symphonic type music for them. John Philip Sousa (King of the Marches and inventor of the sousaphone) back in the 1890s. led brass bands of large and small compositions, performing ragtimes and marches with them. Pianist and composer Scott Joplin composed a symphony and two operas based on ragtime material, using a large mixed orchestra in these works. Of the musicians of classical New Orleans jazz, the most famous are their attempts to enlarge the traditional composition of the jazz band and create instrumental groups within it Jelly Roll Morton, Bank Johnson, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Carroll Dickerson.

In the formation of the swing style and big band in the 1920s. many orchestras and their leaders took part - both black jazzmen (Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Mouten, Don Redman, Jimmy Lunsford, Charlie Johnson, William McKinney, Louis Russell, Earl Hines, Chick Webb, Cab Calloway) and white musicians -Jean Goldkett, Ben Pollack, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Gray with his famous orchestra Casa Loma and others. Broadway and Hollywood orchestras of popular music and sweet swing also made a certain contribution to the development of big band jazz. Violinist and bandleader Paul Whiteman, in collaboration with composer George Gershwin, laid the foundation for symphonic jazz experiments, which later gained numerous supporters and followers.

In the 1930s commercialized white swing orchestras noticeably squeezed black musicians, having prevailed over them in economic competition, but white bandleaders soon realized the need to overcome the racial and commercial confrontation between white and black jazz (one of the first was swing king Benny Goodman). Creative contacts between white and black jazzmen, their joint concert practice opened up new horizons in the development of orchestral swing music. The best Negro big bands of this period include the orchestras of Benny Carter and Count Basie, among the white orchestras (in addition to Goodman's) the big bands of the Dorsey brothers, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Charlie Barnet, Harry James, Bing Crosby and his brother Bob Crosby are worthy of mention (Bob Cats). Since 1938, at the initiative of Goodman, regular philharmonic concerts of orchestral jazz began to be held, in connection with which the tendency towards its convergence with academic concert music, towards stylistic synthesis and symphonization, intensified.

Occurred in the 1940s. The bop revolution in jazz, which opened the era of modern jazz, brought to the fore the soloist-improviser and the chamber jazz ensemble - combo, but did not become an obstacle to the subsequent renewal of the musical language and instrumental means of the big band. Experimental, innovative are experiments with new sound (new sound), the search for modern methods of sound organization (up to dodecaphony and microchromatics), new ideas in the field of arrangement and composition, musical forms and polystylistics based on the big band. In line with progressive jazz, they worked especially fruitfully in the 1940s and 1950s. Stan Kenton, Boyd Rayburn, Woody Herman. Orchestral cool-style from the late 1940s actively developed by Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, representatives of California West Coast Jazz. Since the mid 1950s. the so-called third current arose (a synthesis of modern jazz and the academic musical avant-garde) headed by the composer Günter Schuller and the leader of the famous John Lewis Modern Jazz Quartet. Historically significant were also the experiences of creating a bop-big band and on its basis - the Afro-Cuban style (Dizzy Gillespie), experiments with various orchestral compositions

Radio Big Band Swing - broadcasts the best compositions of jazz music from New York (USA). Listen to your favorite Big Band Swing.
Swing is music with the transfer of a strong beat to a weak beat, improvisation and an emphasis on off-beat impulse, a strong rhythm section, double bass and drums.

Radio Big Band Swing - Jazz Swing

Big Bend is a type of musical ensemble that plays jazz. In different variations, the team can have from 10 to 25 performers. The highest peak of Swing's popularity falls on the 30s and 40s of the 20th century.

Instruments for playing swing jazz with Big Bends:

Saxophone, violin, saxophone, trombone, rhythm section, piano, double bass, banjo and other strings.

Performers, famous musicians, members of the Swing & Big Band:

Benny Goodman 1909 - 1986
Glenn Miller 1904 - 1944
Duke Ellington 1899 - 1974
Basie, Count 1904 - 1984
Tommy Dorsey 1905 - 1956
Artie Shaw 1910 - 2004
Frank Sinatra 1915 - 1998
Lionel Hampton 1908 - 2002
Harry James 1916 - 1983
Cab Calloway 1907 - 1994
Woody Herman 1913 - 1987
Buddy Rich 1917 - 1987
Benny Carter 1907 - 2003
Charlie Christian 1916 - 1942
Roy Eldridge 1911 - 1989
Charlie Barnet 1913 - 1991
Count Basie Orchestra
Earl Hines 1903 - 1983
Jimmy Dorsey 1904 - 1957
Glenn Miller Orchestra
Krupa, Jean 1909 - 1973
Dean Martin 1917 - 1995
Michael Bublé 1975 -
Beantown Swing Orchestra
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Mercer Ellington 1919 - 1996
Harry Connick 1967 -
Mary Lou Williams 1910 - 1981
Bobby Darin 1936 - 1973
Sammy Kaye 1910 - 1987
Bob Crosby 1913 - 1993
James Kern Kaiser 1905 - 1985
Johnny Long 1914 - 1972
Quincy Jones 1933 -
Claire Teal 1973 -
Louis Jordan 1908 - 1975
Kinderjazz
Steve Lawrence 1935 -
Billy Ternent 1899 - 1977
Hal Kemp 1904 - 1940

The article is devoted to such a jazz orchestra as a big band. The main characteristics of the orchestra are given, such styles as bebop, swing, fusion are considered. You will also learn what big bands existed and the names of their leaders.

Jazz big band. What it is?

The literal translation of this phrase is a large orchestra. This is one of the distinguishing features of a jazz orchestra, which is characterized by a certain composition of instruments. The main role assigned to the group Among the specific features of the big band, the following should be noted:

Separation of instrumental groups, which are commonly called "sections".
A special technique of the ensemble playing: the interweaving of improvisations of soloists with arranged sections, as well as the use of non-standard types of orchestral accompaniment (background).
A mixture of bright contrasting timbres, which evokes associations with collage and mix sound.
Uneven rhythmic pulsation, constant shifts in emphasis, which is a very difficult element of performance.

The number of musicians is from ten to twenty people. Most often, a big band comes out in such an instrumental composition: five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones and a piano rhythm group, drums). The following groups of tools are expected:

Saxophone sections - reads.
Brass sections - brass.
Rhythm section.
Sections of woodwind instruments - woods.
String group.

This is the main characteristic of such an orchestra as a big band. Swing, bebop, fusion are three different jazz styles, which will be discussed below.

The main characteristic of the bebop jazz style

A variation of this style was formed by the beginning of the 40s. Its exact name is bop (bop). And already the derivatives of this word (bebop, bibap, ribap) have become widely used in everyday life. All of them are directly related to the practice of scat vocals and have an onomatopoeic genesis. Another name for it is mintons style. This term takes its origin from the name of the Harlem club (Minton's Playhouse). The founding musicians of bebop performed in this club. This style (bop) appeared as an experimental direction after swing.

The main trends that characterize the bop style:

Modernization of the old hot jazz.
The presence of independent solo improvisation.
Innovation in the field of musical expressive means (rhythms, melodics, textures, harmony, tempo, timbre, etc.).

Swing is a means of expression in jazz

Translated from English (swing) means swing, swing. The word swing is used in two senses, as an expressive jazz tool and as a style.

Swing as an expressive jazz tool is a specific kind of metro-rhythmic pulsation, formed on endless rhythmic deviations (both late and advanced) from the strong beats of the ground beat. In this regard, there is a feeling of huge internal energy, which is in a state of unstable balance. The effect of a kind of "swaying" of the sound mass, an unstable metrical basis, is created. Swing as an expressive means is characterized by metro-rhythmic conflicts.

Swing as a style of orchestral jazz

It appeared in the period of the 20-30s as a result of the combination of Europeanized and Negro stylistic forms of jazz. Initially, it was represented by a big band, and towards the end of the 30s, music in this style was performed by combos (chamber ensembles). Characteristic features of the style:

A kind of pulsation, causing direct associations with "rocking".
A special combination of solo improvisation with sectional playing technique.
Original tone color.
Significant role of composition and arrangement.

Not everyone knows what a swing big band is. This is the result of the development and expansion of the Chicago style.

Fusion style characteristic

Translated from English, fusion means fusion, alloy. Fusion is the stylistic direction of modernity. This type of style appeared in the 70s on the basis of jazz rock, as well as a combination of elements of non-European folklore and European academic music.

Fusion style music is mostly instrumental. It is usually distinguished by complex meter-rhythmic features and time signature. Listeners in Europe, Japan and South America are fans and true connoisseurs of this style of music.
In Russia, one of the first performers was the group "Arsenal" (founded in 1973) with the participation of In 1974, under the leadership of Georgy Garanyan, the first album was released under the name "Labyrinth. Jazz Compositions" in jazz fusion style.

What were the big bands?

The emergence of big bands and their popularity have not always been equal.
So, for example, the Benny Goodman Orchestra was extremely popular and in high demand among the public, which did not even know that this big band arose with the help of other orchestras that existed before. This orchestra was based on the colossal experience and support of the Fletcher Henderson Big Band. Musicians such as:

Artie Shaw;
Bob Crosby;
Jimmy Dorsey;
Harry James.

At the end of the 1930s, the orchestra was especially popular. Its creator was a trombonist who studied the basics of arranging for a long time. He introduced a number of innovations. One of them is crystal chorus.

The Count Basie Big Band was formed in the 1930s in Kansas City and was finally formed in New York. Basie, who honored jazz traditions, was able to achieve flawless swing and powerful sound. In this orchestra, the presence is clearly felt, which are characteristic of a big band. Among them it is worth noting the following:

Question-answer form.
Interaction of orchestral sections.
The use of orchestral riffs.

Orchestra The head of the group combined several talents at once: a band leader, a pianist, a composer, a painter. He managed to create an individual sound that combines elements of classical music orchestration and traditional jazz techniques.

Thus, a big band has its own characteristic and distinctive features, a certain composition of musicians and instruments. There are different jazz styles: swing, bebop, fusion. The emergence of big bands and their popularity has not always been equal. The big bands of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington were very popular.

Artistic director and conductor Vladimir Tolkachev, Honored Artist of Russia
Team manager Viktor Tregubov

About team

The orchestra was created in 1985 from students of the Novosibirsk State Conservatory. For several years it was called Eurosib International. Since 1994, the orchestra has been part of the Novosibirsk State Philharmonic.

The team works in a variety of genres. One of his activities is free-form music - these are 40-minute variations by V. Tolkachev on the theme of J. Gershwin "Summertime", "Concerto for Orchestra" by V. Chekasin. The Big Band also carries out major projects: staging a jazz concert version of J. Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess with American singers, a choir and a string orchestra; the first Russian performance of Ellington-Streyhorn's Shakespeare Suite; performance of a program from the works of Glazunov and Stravinsky with the participation of musicians of the academic symphony orchestra; jazz versions of "West Side Story" with string orchestra and Chamber Choir and music from the ballet "The Nutcracker" transcribed by Duke Ellington; Ellington's Second Sacred Concerto; the musical "De-Lovely", the program "Songs of Frank Sinatra", etc.

The Big Band took part in more than 30 international jazz festivals: Pori and Imatra (Finland), Montreux (Switzerland), Vienne and Megeve (France), Hannover (Germany); performed twice at 4 pm in Paris at the famous Lionel Hampton Jazz Club.

Famous soloists performed with the band: Bobby Watson, Donald Harrison and Valery Ponomarev (all of them played in the legendary Jazz Messengers ensemble), Ernie Watts (two-time Grammy Award winner), Dee Dee Bridgewater (three-time Grammy Award winner), Anne Hampton Calloway, Nicole Henry, Kevin Mahogany, Bobby Harden, Tommy Campbell, Fantine (USA), Mina Agossi, André Villeger, Jean Lou Lignon (France), John Downes, Anthony Strong (England), Benjamin Ehrman (Netherlands), Leonid Ptashka, Robert Anchipolovsky (Israel), Russian jazz stars Igor Bril, Igor Butman, Georgy Garanyan, Anatoly Kroll, Daniil Kramer, Vladimir Chekasin, Arkady Shilkloper and others.

In 2008, V. Tolkachev's Big Band performed at the main arena of the Jazz Festival in Pori in the same program with world jazz superstars: Chick Corea, Dave Wickle, Randy Brekker, Al Di Meola, Lenny White.

In 2013 and 2014 the team toured South Korea, and one of the concerts took place in the best and largest concert hall in the country - the Seoul Art Center.

Big band has excellent reviews from experts:

“We didn’t suspect that there is such an amazing Big Band in your country”

ITAR-TASS correspondent V. Kutakhov summarizes the statements of the audience of the Seoul Art Center (July 2013).

“Vladimir Tolkachev's big band is considered one of the best big bands in Russia. After I saw them in person, I can say that this is generally one of the best bands that I have ever heard, this is a real Big Band with a style inherent in the great bands of the past ”

Jason Park ("Evening News", Manchester, England, July 2008)

"In Novosibirsk, the talented scouts of the Jazz Music Initiative found a treasure, and Vladimir Tolkachev's jazz orchestra was chosen as the festival's top band"

“Hannoversche allgemeine zeitung”, No. 50, February 28, 2002

“What the listeners in the hall heard from the banks of the Ob destroyed the cultural prejudices that had settled in Western heads ... I wanted to pinch myself in order to believe in the reality of what was happening: that means what it is - musical Siberia!”