Knoxville Jazz Orchestra

When you think of terrific big bands you usually think of the larger cities like New York or LA.  Actually there are quite a few terrific big bands in smaller towns across the country.  (Ok, so a steady gig usually consists of playing once or twice per month for beer, but at least we can get our cookies off playing some big band jazz.)

 

The Knoxville Jazz Orchestra is a prime example of an excellent big band in a relatively smaller metropolitan area.  The group was formed by a friend of mine from Chicago (we both moved out of town to smaller areas in 1999) where he was attending DePaul university, my alumni as well.  Vance is a wonderful trumpet player and writes some really good big band charts as well. 

 

I’m not sure how you could get so many great players in a smaller town like Knoxville but they seem to do just fine.  They even put together a tour to the Montreaux jazz festival a couple years ago.  Seems Vance has been doing a lot of writing in the last few years because the 3 CDs they have put out include a lot of his charts. 

 

Visit the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra website here.  And if you can catch them live, do so!  And buy a CD from them as long as you are there too.