For the last few months I’ve been working with the Denmark Street Big Band. Known as one of London’s best big bands, we’ve been playing every Sunday at the Grace bar, just off Piccadilly Circus in London. Here we play tunes made famous by such singers as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Michael Bublé, and in this form the band is fronted by Glenn McNamara.
We’ve also recently played the famous Pizza Express jazz club in Dean Street, London, playing the songs of Nat King Cole with singer Peter Savizon, and we’re due to return to the prestigious venue on October 28th for a tribute to Ray Charles and other Soul greats.
Big band playing is quite challenging as it requires you to have a number of different styles down. At any given time you can be expected to play funk, rock, Latin, and blues styles as well as the typical swing playing that jazz music is famous.
This also makes equipment choice quite challenging as the standard jazz style ‘boxes’ don’t lend themselves well to rock solos. I tend to use my Les Paul for the Grace bar residency due to the variety of styles we play, and also because it has the same pickups as my ES175 which is my preferred jazz guitar. I also make use of a solid maple Eastman Jazzer which has a floating pickup on it. It’s a bit brighter, but better for older big band and ‘straight-ahead’ gigs. For this reason I used it on the Nat King Cole gig, but I’m probably going to use the Les Paul for the Soul gig at the Pizza since I may be required to solo and have a brighter tone.
As a rule big band gigs require you to sight read which always makes for a challenging gig! You also never really know what you’re likely to be playing as you tend to find out when you get to the venue. It’s not my perfect idea of preparation, but it keeps things interesting and focused. It means the work really needs to go in before you get to the gig, making sure your reading and vocabulary in the above styles is as thorough as possible.
Come and check out the band on a Sunday, or come down to Pizza Express for some great Soul music!
