Dealing With Weird Instrumentation and Improving Improvisation…It’s Real Easy! by Steve Wiest When I have the honor of taking part in a middle school, high school or university jazz festival as an adjudicator, I am presented with an all-too-common list of perplexing situations: Big Bands with bizarre instrumentation (REALLY bizarre!) Virtuoso charts that are WAY […]
Collective Improvisation in Big Band Dr. John Reynolds One of the real challenges a big band director faces in daily rehearsal is how to get all students improvising. Truthfully, Jazz ensembles in which each member is a proficient improviser swing harder because each individual has done so much listening. Let’s face it though, not every […]
The Big Band Music of David Baker by Monika Herzig We recently lost one of our jazz legends, David Baker, but his legacy continues. The stories, tributes, and pictures that were shared in the Remembering David Baker Facebook group speak volumes about his impact on the jazz community worldwide and beyond. In addition, major publications all over […]
Latin Percussion Applications in the Jazz Band By Victor Rendón Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and other “world” instruments have always been played in the context of popular music and jazz groups including jazz bands in colleges. Often, this area of drumming is neglected in an educational setting leaving the student to attempt to come up with something […]