Joe DiMonte

He came,he saw,he conquered !
The Chicago Jazz Ensemble under the Artistic Direction of Maestro Faddis arrived in the City Of Champions for five (5) performanes which commenced
on Thursday (2/28) and concluded earlier this afternoon (3/2).
It was an evening to remember as the band while cooking with high heat was also GROOVIN' HIGH.
The evening's music was dedicated to: Nat King Cole;Ella Fitzgerald;
Thelonious Sphere Monh and John Birks Gillespie.

The Chicago Jazz Ensemble included:
Trumpet section - Mark Olen,Larry Bowen,Scott Hall,Art Hoyle and Pharez Whitted.

Saxophone section - Dan Nicholson,Jarrard Harris,Pat Mallinger,Rob Denty and Brian Sjoerdinga.

Trombone section - Audrey Morrison,Tim Coffman,Andy Baker,Tracy Kirk and John Blane.
The rhythm secyion were: Peter Saxe on piano;Frank Dawson on guitar;Dan Anderson on bass;Dana Hall on drums;and vocalist Bobbi Wilsyn.

Ms.Audrey Morrison was out of this world on "A Night In Tunisia" while
Peter Saxe displayed a performance memorable of Mr.Bill Evans.

Here's what my local savant wrote about the concert -

Jazz ensemble tips its hat to the legends
By Bob Karlovits
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, February 28, 2008

Jon Faddis approaches the varied sides of his musical life with the same force he uses in ripping out a trumpet solo in a manner mindful of Dizzy Gillespie.
He teaches at two music schools, is affiliated with a range of music-related groups, leads small groups and two big bands and still finds ways to work in other projects.

"I'm a little busy," he admits, talking two days after returning from a one-day performance in Australia. "But I'll take that."

He hits the road again this week for a weekend stay in the North Side, where he will lead his Chicago Jazz Ensemble, a band affiliated with Columbia College Chicago but made of professional musicians.


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It's a band that not only gives him a chance to show his remarkably powerful chops in a number of ways, but creates an educational-artistic exploration of music.
This concert, "Happy 90th Birthday, Nat, Diz, Ella and Monk," will take a look at music that was created or played by some of the best-known names in jazz. It will include the sounds of singer and pianist Nat "King" Cole, trumpeter Gillespie, singer Ella Fitzgerald and pianist Thelonious Monk, as well as original tunes.

"We'll be starting at the present and just keep working our way back," he says.

Faddis, 54, says the band started about 40 years ago as a way to examine the big-band repertoire and was led by arranger and trombonist Bill Russo (1928-2003). When Russo died, Faddis, a man with a good deal of big-band experience, won auditions to take over.

He likes the educational role of the band, but also is trying to take it in new directions by commissioning original big-band works from arrangers such as Tom Garling and Bob Ojeda.

"It's similar to what I was doing with the Carnegie Hall band," he says, referring to 11 years' leading the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band in New York. In that time, the band premiered more than 100 pieces.

He also is doing that with the Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra of New York, the successor of the Carnegie Hall band.

Big bands are fitting outlets for players of Faddis' power. After meeting trumpet legend Gillespie when he was 15, he sat in with him at a jazz workshop in San Francisco, near his Oakland home.

He was a member of Lionel Hampton's band by the time he was 17, then joined the fabled Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra in New York. He also has been a member of or performed with the bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Gil Evans, as well as Paquito D'Rivera's United Nation Orchestra and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

He also has worked in many small groups and done a fair amount of soundtrack work, helping to add up to appearances on 500 albums.

He also is a guest lecturer at Columbia College Chicago and director of jazz performance at the State University of New York at Purchase.

One of his projects will lead him to Australia again later this year, he says. But that probably will keep him longer than his recent concert trip.

"I'm just trying to keep things moving," he says.



LONG LIVE BOP !

wvtrumpet

Great post!!!! I was at the Sunday concert and the band was swingin!!!!

wiseone2

Here's Art Hoyle from the period when I first met him,the late 50s.
YouTube - Lionel Hampton Big Band 1959
Big Eddie Williams was in the original band that played "Hair" on Broadway.
Thank goodness the band kept their clothes on
Zack Zachery was a fixture in MFSB, we played in the Club Harlem band together.
Wilmer

stchasking

Hair, what fond memories. My mother took my brother and I to Chicago to see it. My father was not pleased. But he relented. I was 14. When we got home I knew my father was concerned so I told him the stage was so dim I couldn't see anything. That was the truth. I think Midwestern audiences got a milder version than the New York audiences.

wiseone2

The band had the best seats in the house, when the curtains went down and the stage lights came up................. Those are some of the perks. I am told "Chicago" is a difficult show to play because of the scenery.
Wilmer

Joe DiMonte

[quote=wiseone2;364047]Here's Art Hoyle from the period when I first met him,the late 50s.
YouTube - Lionel Hampton Big Band 1959


Thanks Wilmer.
That was a fine recording from the archives.Mr.Hoyle is also an excellent singer.He sang a Nat King Cole hit and even sounded like Mr.Cole.

I hope the locals in attendance at that 1959 gig in Belgium are aware it's
warriors like 1st Sgt. Leonard A.Funk,CMH (Leonard A. Funk, Jr. - First Sergeant, United States Army · Cached page) who kept the American Sounds alive in Europe.
Mr.Funk was a hair (pardon the pun) taller than his fellow Pittsburgher Roy Eldridge and who like Roy,took no prisoners when armed with brass or Government Issue.