Virtuoso power - Dual City Concert Band with Don Braden

Concert review

Artist | Dual City Concert Band with Guest soloist Don Braden

Venue | De Tor, Enschede

Date | Friday March 4 2011

As I entered Enschede’s jazz-club “De Tor” I had a feeling that I would need to be careful. The regulars had already taken up position in the seats at the back of the club. Most of the seats at the front were still empty except for a few of those fans more interested in who else was there (you can pick them a mile away by the way the keep looking over their shoulder or inspecting the state of the wiring hanging from the ceiling. I usually try to sit toward the back however this evening I had a guest with me that wanted to sit up front. Ok then, there are still seats up front behind the band leader, “we should be able to hear everything well here”.

Concert Review - Big Band 89

Big Band 89 – conducted by Andrew Read

Kulturhus Borne – 13 February 2011

On arriving in the Netherlands some 6 months ago I was pleasantly surprised to find the Big Band scene alive and well. I would appear the every city, town and village has at least one big band either amateur, semi-pro or professional. Big Band 89 falls into the amateur category however based on their performance in Borne last Sunday one could have easily thought this not to be the case.

The concert comprised two sets of mainstream big band repertoire drawn largely from the 40’s and 50’s. The concert opend with Neal Hefti’s “Splanky”. I missed the tutti into that was replaced here with a welcome speech. The band picked up the tempo in the second piece Choo Choo Ch Boogie made famous by Louis Jordan and featured a strong trumpet solo from Marco Wind. Vocalists Wilma van Diepen and Henk Bleumink provided a well balanced vocal set including a duet arrangement of “I thought about you”. The highlight of this set was Quincy Jones beautiful ballad “Quintessence” featuring alto player Willy van Diepen. Van Diepen displayed great sensitivity and inventiveness in this piece and his sound reminded me of the Phil Woods original.