The Widespread Depression Orchestra was a nine-piece jazz ensemble founded in 1972 at Vermont's Marlboro College.
Initially, the group played 1950s style R&B and early rock and roll with guitars, piano, sax, bass guitar, drums, and a vocalist, but by the middle of the 1970s was operating as a big band revival group, in the style of the bands of Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Lionel Hampton. The unit moved to New York City in 1978 under the leadership of Jon Holtzman, when it recorded the first of several full-length albums. In 1980 five of its members also played on their own as a bebop group.
Holtzman - better known as The Bronx Nightingale, left the group around 1982 to start his own band and recorded his first solo album - Let's Do It. John Hammond Sr., a big fan of Jon's, graciously volunteered to write the liner notes. After Holtzman left Michael Hashim, the group's alto saxophonist, was named leader, and the musicians broadened their repertory to include swing and bop, featuring original arrangements by band members. Manager Michael Caplin renamed the group the Widespread Jazz Orchestra. WJO played at premier jazz clubs across America and around the world, and appeared at major music festivals including North Sea, Pori, Antibes, New Orleans, Montreal, Montreux + Taormina. Their 1985 Columbia Records album Paris Blues, was produced by Dr. George Butler.
Widespread Depression Orchestra
Widespread Jazz Orchestra
At large
By record
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz.
The Dorsey Brothers were an American studio dance band, led by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. They started recording in 1928 for OKeh Records.
Ronnie Scott OBE was a British jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner. He co-founded Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London's Soho district, one of the world's most popular jazz clubs, in 1959.
Digital III at Montreux is a 1979 live album featuring a compilation of performances by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, and Ray Brown, recorded at the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival. It was produced and has liner notes by Norman Granz. The cover photo is by Phil Stern.
Lewis Burr Anderson was an American actor and musician. He is widely known by TV fans as the third and final actor to portray Clarabell the Clown on Howdy Doody between 1954 and 1960. He famously spoke Clarabell's only line on the show's final episode in 1960, with a tear visible in his right eye, "Goodbye, kids." Anderson is also widely known by jazz music fans as a prolific jazz arranger, big band leader, and alto saxophonist. Anderson also played the clarinet.
Jay Randall Sandke is a jazz trumpeter and guitarist.
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Brian Kellock is a Scottish jazz pianist.
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Joel Edward Helleny was an American jazz trombonist.
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Cootie Williams and His Orchestra 1941–1944 is a compilation album of recordings from 1941, 1942 and 1944 that jazz trumpeter Cootie Williams made with his orchestra and in smaller groups, released on Classics in 1995. The 1942–44 musicians' strike explains the lack of sessions from 1943.
William George "Rams" Ramsay is an American jazz saxophonist and band leader based in Seattle. In 1997, he was inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame, the top of eight Golden Ear Award categories presented annually since 1990 by the Earshot Jazz Society of Seattle. Ramsay performs on all the primary saxophones – soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone – as well as clarinet, and bass clarinet.
Harvey Oliver Brooks was an American pianist and composer. He is the first black American to have written a complete score for a major motion picture: Mae West's film I'm No Angel (1933).
Jacky June was a Belgian jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader.
Jordan Sandke is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, and fluegelhornist.
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