Being out front when a big band is functioning on all cylinders, getting hit in the solar plexus by that combination of reeds, brass and rhythm section is to experience euphoria. When that force and/or enveloping presence also carries feelings for the heart and food for the brain it becomes a jazz trifecta.
These days anyone who starts and tries to maintain a big band is either intrepid or “un poco loco.” Big bands are “a dying breed” and have been designated as such for quite a while. The exceptional Dave Holland Big Band, as it proved in its four-night residency at Birdland, is an exception to this prevalent, conventional wisdom.
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