The Jazz Repertory Company Blog

The Jazz Repertory Company Blog
The Jazz Repertory Company Blog

Wednesday 8 August 2018

The Classical Duke Ellington: Pete Long and Echoes of Ellington (Cadogan Hall Saturday 8 September)


Pete Long (clarinet): 
Neptune, the mystic
Photo credit: Philip Nash
Duke Ellington's elegant and witty reworkings of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Grieg's Peer Gynt suites are featured along with an Ellingtonian Jazz Planets - a new version of Gustav Holst's Planets Suite in its centenary year. Each of the ten movements of Jazz Planets features a soloist from the Echoes of Ellington Orchestra. Feature by Peter Vacher. 

Back in the day, "raggin’ or jazzin’ the classics" was all the rage. It was the American bandleader John Kirby who really put the idea on the map when his tightly organised sextet recorded swinging versions of Schubert’s Serenade and Dvorak’s Humoresque in the 1930s. Later on, they added Anitra’s Dance from Peer Gynt and the intriguingly titled Bounce Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, thus anticipating Duke Ellington’s more comprehensive examination of these time-honoured classics. On a somewhat larger scale, the blind British pianist Alec Templeton created Bach Goes To Town for Benny Goodman’s orchestra in 1938. Sub-titled Prelude And Fugue In Swing it was featured at the band’s Second Carnegie Hall Concert the following year. Speaking of Templeton’s composition, Goodman said it was “as if Bach were writing for a swing band.”
Joe Pettitt (double bass) Saturn, the bringer of old age
Photo Credit: Philip Nash
More recently, Wilbur De Paris’ Rampart Street Paraders speeded through Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor, a piece which it turns out had been recast by Ellington years earlier when his Orchestra was resident at New York’s Cotton Club. Consider, too, the French pianist Jacques Loussier, classically trained and hugely accomplished, who made his fortune with his Play Bach trio, touring world-wide as he set his performances of Bach’s many composition against a jazz backdrop. 

That said, for jazz people, it really took the imprimatur of the mighty Duke Ellington himself to give this short-lived fashion the ultimate badge of approval. When he and his amanuensis Billy Strayhorn conceived the idea of applying the Ellingtonian lexicon to their paraphrase of Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular Nutcracker Suite there was surprise, naturally, but ultimately, approval. The authoritative Gramophone Magazine’s reviewer described Ellington’s re-workings as "a wonderfully affectionate and superbly stimulating reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s suite" while other critics revelled in the roles fulfilled by the band’s greatest soloists in each of Duke’s separate arrangements. Much the same was said of his equally distinctive look at the Peer Gynt Suites Nos 1 and 2 by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg even if the Royal Swedish Academy of Music spoke sniffily of Ellington’s apparent heresy as "offending to Nordic music culture". No matter, for the music was superb as can be judged when patiently transcribed extracts from both the Ellington Nutcracker and Peer Gynt suites are performed by Pete Long’s splendid Echoes of Ellington Orchestra at the upcoming Cadogan Hall concert on 8 September. 
Callum Au (trombone) and Mike Hall (tenor sax)
The Asteroids, the dancers
Photo Credit: Philip Nash

While Ellington’s precise motivation for embarking on these re-creations remains obscure, that for Ellington enthusiast Long’s entirely fresh but still essentially Ellingtonian examination of Gustav Holst’s The Planets Suite is crystal clear. “While driving, Venus from The Planets Suite came on the radio,” he recalled. “It suddenly struck me how Ellingtonian the curves of the melody were. By the time I’d reached my destination, the broad idea of restructuring the whole suite for an Ellington-style orchestra had coalesced.” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Only then could the herculean task of re-orchestrating the many planetary parts commence. After all, Holst’s suite had been written for a large orchestra so eight months of heady work ensued, key melodies were extracted and a signature character assigned to each of Holst’s movements. Ideas were tested and expanded, and individual soloists highlighted as they might have been had Ellington himself been in charge. That done, all that remained was for The Planets Suite by Holst but re-arranged by Pete Long for big band to be recorded. Which it has been. 
Colin Good (piano)
Uranus: the magician
Photo Credit: Philip Nash
The African-American commentator Stanley Crouch was once moved to describe Ellington’s original Nutcracker and Peer Gynt recordings as "making it obvious that one of the greatest ensembles in all of Western history is at work". Having heard Long’s re-scored Planetary music already, I fully expect Crouch‘s verdict to be replicated by those who witness Pete Long and the Echoes of Ellington performing The Classical Duke Ellington at Cadogan Hall in what will be a triple celebration. Not only does 2018 mark the centenary of the premiere performance of Holst’s The Planets Suite but it is also a quarter of a century since Long formed the Echoes Orchestra and ten years since the Jazz Repertory Company’s rich array of concerts at Cadogan Hall first began. (pp)

LINK: The Classical Duke Ellington at Cadogan Hall
 
The Jazz Repertory Company Showreel:
Something worth making a noise about

Thursday 14 June 2018

(Cadogan Hall. 8 June 2018. Review by Peter Vacher

The word jazz conjures up any number of responses. Different strokes for different folks, you might say. Well, for the backroom team at the Jazz Repertory Company this time, it meant seizing on the year 1958 and celebrating a series of vocal break-throughs by major US artists, each of whom had a style imbued with jazz feeling. So no jazz milestones as such, rather a series of programme sequences recalling significant recordings by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Ray Charles, each represented by a star local vocalist accompanied by the consistently brilliant Pete Long Orchestra, with just a dash of Ellingtonia to open each half.  

                                1958: A Jazz Jamboree - Cadogan Hall June 8th 2018
Presenter David Hepworth was on hand to remind us of the state of the nation in 1958 and to add illuminating details regarding the nominated singers and their circumstances but the meat of the night was in those vocal recreations. Enter in turn Georgina Jackson [for Ella], Iain Mackenzie [for Sinatra], Liz Fletcher [for Nina] and the very lively Jeremy Sassoon [for Ray Charles]. Jackson, minus trumpet, is more sure-footed these days, and caught Ella’s brio without ever trying to sound like her. She has real stage presence and a musician’s ear for vocal nuance. Still with songs like ‘Let’s Face the Music’ and ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ complete with trumpeter Jim Davison adding a Dixie burst, how could she go wrong? The gleaming Mackenzie has created something of a niche market for himself as the go-to singer for any Sinatra tribute and clearly relished the opportunity to celebrate the master with Long’s sterling big band, exultant on those Billy May charts. Moonlight in Vermont taken slow, was a standout with a peach of a solo by trombonist Andy Flaxman

 
                                             Alexander's Ragtime Band

Fletcher wriggles rhythmically as she sings but largely stays anchored to the mike, so not for her any overt Simone histrionics. Her sets offered a contrast teaming her with just the rhythm quartet, pianist Christian Vaughan [a new name to me] and guitarist Nigel Price taking their solo moments with aplomb.

                                1958: A Jazz Jamboree - Cadogan Hall June 8th 2018
Pertinent here to mention Julie Walkington's rock-solid bass line and drummer Richard Pite’s adaptability and playing joie-de-vivre. Fletcher is an underrated vocalist, more Peggy Lee than Simone, to be honest, but with a vocal warmth that’s innately pleasing. Vaughan’s long solo introduced My Baby Just Cares for Me taken by Fletcher as a happy romp. Highlight? An extended solo from Price on the very bright Exactly Like You. How wise to assign pianist/vocalist Jeremy Sassoon to the wrap-up spot for each half of the concert. Extrovert and confident, he really gave the Ray Charles song-book a thorough going-over, bringing out all of Ray’s gritty blues feeling with a romping response from the Long chaps, some like tenorist Dean Masser, trombonist Callum Au and altoist Martin Williams out front and giving their all. 

For the out-and-out jazzers among us, Long scheduled two bursts of Ellingtonia – the opener a stunning version of El Gato with trumpeters George Hogg and Davison going at it in bravura fashion. In turn, altoist Colin Skinner offered his version of Prelude to a Kiss, poised and controlled in the proper Johnny Hodges manner. Here and there, there were solo interjections from the instrumentalists, Long’s musical direction and the section blends in perfect order, trumpets excelling, but overall it was a night that belonged to the singers and their songs. 

The Jazz Repertory Company - Worth Making A Noise ABout

BAND : The Pete Long Orchestra directed by Pete Long 

Jim Davison, George Hogg, Tom Gardner, Steve Jones [t]
Callum Au, Andy Flaxman, Mike Feltham [tb]; Andy Derrick [b-tb]
Mark Crooks [ts, cl]; Dean Masser [ts, cl, fl]; Colin Skinner [as, cl, fl, picc]; Martin Williams [as, fl]
Mick Foster [bs, bcl]
Christian Vaughan [p]; Nigel Price [g]; Julie Walkington [b]; Richard Pite [d]
Georgina Jackson, Iain Mackenzie, Liz Fletcher, Jeremy Sassoon [voc]

Peter Vacher's book Swingin' on Central Avenue won the 2016 ARSC Best History in Jazz Music Award.

Wednesday 23 May 2018

PREVIEW 1958: A Jazz Jamboree (Cadogan Hall, 8 June)

1958: A Jazz Jamboree
Photo credit: Nils Solberg

Come Fly with Me... Let’s Face the Music and Dance... Cheek to Cheek... all will feature in  1958: A Jazz Jamboree, a new programme from Richard Pite's Jazz Repertory Company. The vocalists are Iain Mackenzie, Georgina Jackson, Liz Fletcher and Jeremy Sassoon with the Pete Long Orchestra and narrator/host David Hepworth. Martin Chilton investigates:

1958 was a pivotal year for Frank Sinatra. He recorded 47 songs, starred in two films and had his own television show for ABC. Two of the Capitol albums he released 60 years ago – Come Fly with Me and Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely – became popular classics.

 
1958: A Jazz Jamboree

Sinatra is one of the musical giants being celebrated with 1958: A Jazz Jamboree, a concert from the Jazz Repertory Company at London’s Cadogan Hall on Friday 8 June.

Over the past decade, The Jazz Repertory Company – the brainchild of drummer and promoter Richard Pite – has staged a series of entertaining recreations of great jazz, including the bold challenge of presenting 100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes.

Pite explains the background to the event: “Back in 2016 when I turned 60 I decided to do a concert focussing on some of my favourite jazz of 1956… Basie, Sinatra, Ella, etc. The concert was part of the London Jazz Festival and sold out.”

A celebration of 1957 followed and now they are honouring 1958. Pite says they concentrate on big band music and will also be performing the music of Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Ray Charles. “The presentation of our shows harks back to the old ways of presenting jazz and popular music as more of a variety show formula, but without the dog acts and comedians. We feature four singers in the 1958 show: Iain Mackenzie will sing Sinatra, Georgina Jackson sings Ella, Liz Fletcher performs Nina and Jeremy Sassoon sings Ray.” 


Georgina Jackson sings It's Too Darn Hot at Cadogan Hall
 for The Jazz Repertory Company in the 2016 EFG London Jazz Festival
These bright talents of British jazz will be backed by the 17-piece Pete Long Orchestra and the concert will be hosted by author and broadcaster David Hepworth, whose career includes editing Smash Hits magazine and co-presenting the BBC broadcast of Live Aid with Bob Geldof in 1985.

Whirlybird - The Pete Long Orchestra, EFG London Jazz Festival at Cadogan Hall

Hepworth has been touched by the music of Sinatra, whose Come Fly with Me was nominated for album of the year at the inaugural Grammys. Hepworth says of Sinatra’s enduring popularity, “I've always thought that the great singers sound as though they're continuing a conversation by other means. Nobody does that better than Frank Sinatra.”

Capitol’s masterpiece Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook was arranged by Paul Weston and produced by Norman Granz, and this acclaimed pair brought out the very best from a world-beating singer performing lyrics of the quality of Let’s Face the Music and Dance, Cheek to Cheek and Putting on the Ritz.

Hepworth believes the appeal of all this great 1958 music is in part down to the care taken in creating it. “I think a lot of it is the way the records were made,” he explains. “In those days you had to be able to do it in the studio or you couldn't do it at all. Therefore, the engineers were brilliant at capturing the qualities of the human voice.”

Fitzgerald’s music will be sung by jazz singer Jackson, who learned her trade as a lead trumpet player and who worked with Frank Sinatra Jr before becoming the resident singer of the Ronnie Scott’s Orchestra.

Fitzgerald was 41 in 1958, when she was already an established superstar. Simone was just starting to make her mark. In that year the former classical pianist recorded her debut album Little Girl Blue. The album includes Simone’s version of My Baby Just Cares for Me, which resurfaced as a top 10 hit in 1987. Fletcher, who was influenced by 1950s stars such as Peggy Lee and Julie London, once supported Simone at a festival in Greece.


 
Nina Simone's Mr Bojangles sung by Liz Fletcher for 
The Jazz Repertory Company at Cadogan Hall

Pite says that the aim of the concerts is to transport listeners back to golden eras of jazz “by playing the music authentically and, most importantly, with the fire in its belly that it had when being played by a bunch of young punks 60 to 90 years ago”.

Among their future projects is as an event celebrating the music of 1899 to 1919, under the title of The World Gone Mad, for the 2018 London Jazz Festival.

In 1958, Ray Charles, also still in his 20s, performed at the Newport Jazz Festival and was starting to create some of his classic Atlantic Records catalogue. His scintillating version of Doc Pomus’s Lonely Avenue was for 1958’s Yes Indeed. Charles’s music, including the pulsating I Got a Woman, will be performed by Sassoon, noted for his ‘Ray Charles Project’ tribute work.

 Jeremy Sasson and The Jazz Repertory Company at 
Cadogan Hall in The Ray Charles Project

Hepworth was only eight in 1958 (he would like to have seen Blossom Dearie live back then, he says) and recalls that his own involvement with jazz began when he was a teenager. “I saw Louis Armstrong play in 1967, which makes me sound like a survivor of Waterloo,” he says. “In the mid-1970s I spent three years working at the biggest record store in the world, during which time I began to get an inkling of how much I didn't know, and I started to buy jazz and classical records alongside everything else.” 

Jazz sits within the wide world of music, of course, and that is reflected in these shows. As Pite says: “We always have an encore that reflects the fact that during this period rock 'n' roll was outside the walls of jazz and banging noisily and ultimately successfully on the gates. For 1956 we finished with the music of Bill Haley and in 1957 the marvellous Earl Jackson was joined by a dozen dancers for a Chuck Berry finale. This year we'll be doing something similar but keeping it, as ever, as a surprise.”

So what made the project so appealing to Hepworth? “I like the idea of combining music with narrative,” he says. “Somebody should be doing this with rock music.” (pp)

For ticket information see:A Jazz Jamboree

The Jazz Repertory Company - Something to make a noise about.

Wednesday 16 May 2018

Company's 100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes at 2018 South Coast Jazz Festival

100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes at South Coast Jazz Festival
Photo credit: Lisa Wormsley

The Jazz Repertory Company's 100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes
(South Coast Jazz Festival, Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham-by-Sea, 20 January 2018. Review by Charlie Anderson.)

The fourth South Coast Jazz Festival sees a line up that embraces a wide array of jazz styles, so what better way to kick off the festival than a concert that presents 100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes, performed by The Jazz Repertory Company.

Beginning with pianist Nick Dawson’s rendition of Maple Leaf Rag, the band then entered performing some classic New Orleans marching music, followed by early jazz classics Livery Stable Blues and Cake Walking Babies (From Home)




100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes 

Trumpeter Enrico Tomasso was the stand-out performer for the first set performing in the contrasting styles of Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke whilst saxophonist Pete Long impressed the most in the second set with his ability to re-create the sounds of Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane. The addition of trumpeter and vocalist Georgina Jackson illustrated her versatility, singing tunes made famous by Billie Holiday and Chet Baker, and also playing trumpet on tunes such as Birdland
 
Tea For Two - Nick Dawson
100 Years Of Jazz In 99 Minutes

It was fascinating to see each member of the band regularly changing instrument to suit the particular style, but the most impressive thing about the band is its unique combination of energy and humour together with a thorough knowledge of the jazz tradition. Leader Richard Pite has ensured that each classic tune is reproduced with close attention to detail, as was illustrated by their performance of So What, which included the rarely-played Bill Evans introduction and some beautiful bass playing from Dave Chamberlain.

Sponsored by the ever-jovial promoter and manager John Billett, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining evening in what is set to be another great South Coast Jazz Festival.

Charlie Anderson is the founder and editor of Sussex Jazz Magazine


 
The Jazz Repertory Company - Worth Making A Noise About