Weird jazz bands

CMelodyMan · Weird jazz bands

Have you ever played in a jazz band that had weird, non-jazz instruments in it, such as: of flutes, bassoons, and french horns?

JPSaxMan

We have "guest" flutes and maybe a guest clarinet come in once in a while, and I do believe there was talk about jazz french horn...so Cool

saxmaniac

That is pretty strange Shocked

.

JPSaxMan

Nah, of course it's not :smile:

Then again I'm in Redneckville, PA...so...almost anything goes Mr. Green

Kym

In my jazz band i have a girl who doubles on french horn and tenor horn, it fits in really well actually, you'd be surprised listening to her!

joboe

that is really cool! I am in the jazz band at my school and we have to try out. I am one of 5 flutes, about 10-15 altos 2 baris6-8 trumpets, 5-6 percussionists, 2-3 clarinets, a key board and bass player. it is rather top heavy though having all of those saxes that is all YOU can hear.
Joboe

BuffaloBariSax

One of our tenor players has started soloing on everything except for his sax. He solos on his mouthpiece, makes mouth noises, and has played other things like pan flutes and slide whistles for solos.

JazZz

last year we couldn't hold down a trombone section, so we took in anyone..our trombone section consisted of 2 euphonium's, 1 french horn and the occasional actual trombone...
We all so had a solo'ing tuba..~Jazz Tuba~

Our rival school had a jazz french horn section and one of them solo'd a whole lot, it was crazy because she was the best kid jazz soloist i've ever heard and she was a french hornist
I guess french horn in school jazz isn't too uncommon because I've seen a whole lot of french horns in high school jazz.

musicalprodigy

lasat year we had a clarinet play in our jazz band, i thought that was kinda weird.

JazZz

Clarinet in band is indeed weird, unless it's something like in the mood or a stan getz toon, he was a great clarinetist. I want to learn bass clarinet to play in jazz after I heard people like eric dolphy (even if he isn't strictly "Jazz")

CMelodyMan

I've never heard of "In the Mood' having a clarinet in it! Shocked

Where can I find out about that? That would be interesting to hear. A clarinetist came to all of our jazz band practices last year, but she never actually played at the concert. I might ask my BD if I can take a solo on my clarinet in jazz band, if I don't sell it by then.

Thanks,
David

Louis Scuderi

Our Jazz band-

1 Bass
2 Piano/Keyboard
2 Alto
2 Tenor
1 Clarinet
1 Flute
1 Oboe
1 trombone
3 trumpets

You should have heard the oboist's solo on Chameleon. Mr. Green

BuffaloBariSax

One of my best friends plays clarinet, and she played with the band on "Moonlight Serenade." Also, she's part of our combo, and she's awesome. She learned sax just so she could continue to play in jazz band when we don't have music w/ clarinet parts.

It's not really weird in terms of different instruments, but our top jazz band set up this year is:

7 saxes- 3 altos, 2 tenors, 2 baris
5 bones
5 trumpets
Rhythm- 2 pianists, 1 bass, 1 guitar, 2 drummers

JazZz

Haha, sorry about the "in the mood" comment, I wasn't thinking. We have choirs for each instrument in my school and the Clarinet choir did this thing with a few selects from jazz and they did in the mood, so they took like a sax, a trumpet, and the rythm section and played it. So it was pretty much all clarinets and didn't sound very bad.

Speaking of this, does anyone have the sheet music to in the mood for a solo alto? Thanks

Kym

I never thought it was weird for clarinets to be in jazz bands, when i went to an army band lecture there jazz group featured clarinet, what was weird was there were no saxes Shocked

so, yeah, erm....clarinets play jazz nicely dont ya think???

JPSaxMan

Not as nicely as saxes Mr. Green

JazZz

If you do it right, clarinet sounds really good playing jazz, but I've only heard a few people do it good.

JPSaxMan

Eddie Daniels does it pretty good if I do say so myself Cool

Thomas

The Brigham Philips Big Band, based in Toronto, CA, often uses "non-jazz" instruments, and they sound pretty *##! good doing it. In their newest album, And it Really Was, they use the french horn, flute, clarinet, and bass clarinet in several of their songs.

If anyone wants a sampler of the above album, just PM me, and I'll email you the following (the instruments in parentheses are extra "non-jazz" instruments):

- Irish Cream (flute, bass clarinet, and french horn)
- Flight East (flute)

Most of the songs on the above album are original tunes written by the bandleader, Brigham Philips. These two, in my opinion, best represent the band's successful experimental instrumentation.