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unusual facts about Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band



A Child Is Born

The song "A Child is Born" was written in 1969 by the jazz trumpeter Thad Jones and Alec Wilder.

Carmen Lundy

She moved to New York in 1978 where she was hired by the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and performed her first New York engagement at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village.

Håkan Rydin

The piano style of Håkan Rydin has been described as ”lyrical and cooking” and he has performed with Thad Jones, Pepper Adams, Red Mitchell, Etta Cameron, Enrico Rava, Tim Hagans, Georgie Fame, David Liebman and Swedish Jazz stars like Jan Allan, Arne Domnérus, Helge Albin, Anders Bergcrantz, Christer Boustedt, Bernt Rosengren and Svante Thuresson.

Juhani Aaltonen

He recorded with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis and with Heikki Sarmanto in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his first album as a soloist, Etiquette, was released in 1974.

Kaj Backlund

Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and UMO (1977) (Nominated for a 1979 Grammy award in the "Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Big Band" category.)

Next Wave Jazz Ensemble

Musical material for the group includes works originally performed by the Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Stan Kenton, and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis bands, along with more recent compositions by the likes of Bob Curnow.

Norman O'Connor

The show was popular in the New York area, and many great jazz musicians performed on it; including Duke Ellington (in a trio with Horace Silver and Johnny Hodges), The Modern Jazz Quartet, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, Bill Evans, Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson, Peggy Lee, Mongo Santamaría, Gene Krupa, and Joe Williams, among others.

Porfi Jiménez

Beside this, he conducted a 17-piece Jazz orchestra to promote the big band tradition by featuring his own repertoire and selected works of Thad Jones, Chico O'Farrill, among others.

Radiojazzgruppen

During the 1970s and 80s the band worked with guest musicians and composers such as Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, Gil Evans, Thad Jones, George Russell and Aage Tanggaard.

Thad Jones

Several Americans were on the album, pianist Horace Parlan, baritonist Sahib Shihab, trumpeter Tim Hagans and trombonist/vocalist Richard Boone along with trombonists Bjarne Thanning and Ture Larsen, trumpeter Lars Togeby, altoists Ole Thøger and Michael Hove, tenor saxophonist Bent Jædig and Jesper Lundgaard on bass.

Greetings and Salutations (Four Leaf Clover, 1977) with Mel Lewis, Jon Faddis and the Swedish Radio Jazz Group (Lennart Åberg, Arne Domnérus, Bengt Hallberg, Georg Riedel, Rune Gustafsson, ...)


see also