View from top of the Hump

Big Bands Perform at VIU

The first jazz recording I ever heard was the Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert. The second was a single by the Stan Kenton Orchestra entitled The Peanut Vendor. 

I was 13 at the time and like many youngsters was taking classical piano lessons. Spellbound after hearing the recordings, which had been played during one of my Grade 7 classes by a jazz-loving teacher, I proceeded to spend most of my enslaved practice time at the piano trying to figure out how the jazz pianists on the albums strung together the solos that seemed to pour forth so effortlessly from their fingers.

After hours of experimentation I realized they were playing various groupings of modular scales laid on top of a given tune’s chord structure resulting in improvisations that were phenomenal feats of spontaneous composition.  Having no one on the west side of the “hump” to guide me, I then spent months trying to clone what I was hearing on the recordings into my own free spirit solos. Listening from a distance, my mother’s only comment during my practice time was the slight reprimand “why don’t you play the song’s melody anymore?” 

I like to believe in time my mother came to understand that my keyboard meanderings were the basic ingredient which made jazz a very intricate and intriguing art form. However my interest in departing from the written score eventually led to me quitting piano lessons. I didn’t return to the instrument until attending Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles after graduating from high school.  The intervening years I’d spent playing the string bass in an Alberni District High School Dance Band called the Lucky Seven. 

I look back at my life in music with a deep appreciation, especially towards Al Chalmers, the teacher who set the needle down on that 78 rpm recording of Stan Kenton’s Peanut Vendor.  Although in fairness, without those classical piano lessons I wouldn’t have had the grounding needed to make it as a musician and teacher. I confess my wife Pat has also given me many keyboard technical tips along the way.

The years have passed quickly and I’m still hammering away at the ivories and loving every minute of it. This week I played piano with the Arrowsmith Big Band at a concert at Vancouver Island University. Brian Stovell, a professor of music at VIU,  organized the event which featured the Arrowsmith Big Band in the first set with the Nanaimo Musicians’ Association Big Band taking over after intermission. 

Standing back stage as the crowd entered the theatre, Bryan mentioned to me he sensed the majority of the audience had likely come expecting to hear music from the so-called Big Band Era of the 1930’s and 40’s, not the more contemporary material written by today’s arrangers. Mixing with the 

audience during intermission I did hear the odd rumblings that selections like Glenn Miller’s In the Mood, Benny Goodman’s Sing Sing Sing and Count Basie’s One O’Clock Jump were not being played on the program.  However my take was most folks were enjoying the concert, expressing how impressed they were with the high level of musicianship displayed.

In the concert’s second set I thought Bryan as MC handled the concern with great diplomacy, explaining to the audience that both bands at various times during the year performed all those perennial hits from the Big Band Era.  In fact he said the musicians on stage had probably played In The Mood more times than Glenn Miller had in his 

lifetime! 

So if you are one who loves the music from the Swing Era and would like to hear all those legendary tunes wrapped up in a single package, mark November 11^th (Remembrance Day) on your calendar. Between 2 pm and 4 pm at the Legion Hall in Parksville, the Arrowsmith Big Band will perform music meant for dancing. And here’s a great perk - it’s free.  Those readers living in Port Alberni will need to make the perennial drive “over the hump.”

Until my next Blog ………..Cheers.  

PHOTO:

I look forward to playing piano with the Arrowsmith Big Band each week. Here we’re seen performing last Wednesday evening on stage at the Vancouver Island University Malaspina Theatre. The Arrowsmith Big Band opened the evening of Big Band Jazz with the Nanaimo Musicians’ Association Big Band directed by Bryan Stovell performing after intermission.

PHOTO:

The Lucky 7 Dance Band, pictured here in 1953 on the stage of the old Alberni Athletic Hall in Port Alberni, was the first ensemble I’d ever played with. That’s me on the string bass. The gig paid $7 per player for three hours.