A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands. An orchestra is a group of instrumentalists, especially one combining string, woodwind, brass, and percussion sections and playing classical music.
Robert Edward "Bob" Brookmeyer was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brookmeyer first gained widespread public attention as a member of Gerry Mulligan's quartet from 1954 to 1957. He later worked with Jimmy Giuffre, before rejoining Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band. He garnered 8 Grammy Award nominations during his lifetime.
Arthur Stewart Farmer was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, double bassist Addison Farmer, started playing professionally while at high school in Los Angeles. Art gained greater attention after the release of a recording of his composition "Farmer's Market" in 1952. He subsequently moved from Los Angeles to New York, where he performed and recorded with musicians such as Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, and Gigi Gryce and became known principally as a bebop player.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
Sky were an English/Australian instrumental rock group that specialised in combining a variety of musical styles, most prominently rock, classical and jazz. The group's original and best-known line-up featured two Australians - classical guitarist John Williams and electric guitarist Kevin Peek - alongside three Britons - bass player Herbie Flowers, drummer/percussionist Tristan Fry and keyboard player Francis Monkman.
George Edward Heath was a British musician and big band leader.
Randal Edward Brecker is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B.
Michael Mantler is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music.
Mathias Rüegg is a European musician, composer, and bandleader best known as founder and director of the Vienna Art Orchestra from 1977 to 2010.
Jimmy Owens is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, among many others. Since 1969, he has led his own group, Jimmy Owens Plus.
Stafford James is an American double-bassist and composer.
The University of California Jazz Ensembles, also known as the UC Jazz Ensembles, UC Jazz, or UCJE, is the student jazz organization founded in 1967 on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Founded in 1967, it comprises one or more big bands, numerous jazz combos, a vocal jazz ensemble, an alumni big band, and instructional classes. With a mission statement to foster a community for the performance, study, and promotion of jazz at U.C. Berkeley, its Wednesday Night big band provides free concerts every Thursday noon on Lower Sproul Plaza, its various units perform throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including area high schools, travel to collegiate jazz festivals, and perform overseas, and for many years it sponsored the annual Pacific Coast Jazz Festival. It also provides master classes by its instructors and clinics by prominent guest artists. It has nurtured numerous musicians who have become professional jazz musicians and educators. UC Jazz Ensembles is one of three groups, with the Cal (marching) Band and UC Choral Ensembles, forming Student Musical Activities (SMA), a department within Cal Performances on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Its members are primarily U.C. Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, representing many academic disciplines.
The history of jazz in Belgium starts with the Dinant instrument maker Adolphe Sax, whose saxophone became part of military bands in New Orleans around 1900 and would develop into the jazz instrument par excellence. From then on the early history of jazz in Belgium virtually runs parallel to developments in the country of the birth of jazz, from the minstrel shows in the late 19th century until the first Belgian jazz album in 1927 and beyond.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
Georgi Kornazov is a Bulgarian jazz trombonist and composer, who lives in Paris, France.
Wolfgang Puschnig is an Austrian jazz musician and composer.
Ronald "Ron" Frank Paley is a Canadian composer, arranger, pianist, electric bassist, and big-band leader based in Winnipeg.
Concerto Piccolo is a live album by European jazz group the Vienna Art Orchestra recorded at the Zürich Jazz Festival in 1980 and released on the Hat ART label.
A Notion in Perpetual Motion is a live album by European jazz group the Vienna Art Orchestra recorded in Switzerland which was first released in 1985 on the Hat ART label as a double LP as Perpetuum Mobile then re-released in 1992 as a single CD.
Josephine Amann-Weinlich was an Austrian pianist, violinist, conductor and composer. She founded and conducted Europe's first women orchestra.
