Setzer Orchestra music featured at Purdue’s ‘Super Jazz Jam’

Saturday, March 22, 2008

As the 20th century dissolved into the 21st, it was The Brian Setzer Orchestra that brought new energy and life to swing music and got people dancing in a way they hadn’t in more than 50 years.

Signature tunes by Setzer’s Orchestra will be featured at Purdue Bands’ “Super Jazz Jam” on March 28 featuring four different bands. The annual event is set for 8 p.m. Friday (March 28) in Loeb Playhouse of the Purdue Stewart Center. Admission is free.

“Jump, Jive and Wail,” “Rock This Town” and “Jumpin’ East of Java,” Setzer’s three biggest hits, will be performed by the American Music Repertory Ensemble as part of a diverse concert filled with contemporary swing and jazz tunes.

Setzer’s retro swing, or jump style, has a rockabilly feel, says director M.T. “Mo” Trout. “It’s country and rock on top of swing. Our brass players really get to blow, just cut loose, and they get to do horn moves to make it flashy. They are really having fun with it.”

Since Brian Setzer plays guitar, the instrument gets significant spotlight moments in his tunes. Purdue guitar player Mike Trilus, a sophomore from Rossville, IN, will take advantage of to show off his skills. (His picture appears with this story.)

In keeping with the concert’s retro theme, American Music Repertory Ensemble will also present Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,”  “Prima just has a lot of fun with music, and this is his biggest hit,” says Trout. The arrangement being performed was originally written for the New York Voices and features AMRE’s singers.

Other bands on the March 28 program bring a wide array of contemporary sounds to the concert. Concert Jazz Band will perform an arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” that’s based on the version performed by the rock band Chicago. “Alphonsus Cassell’s ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’ again has that retro feel but with a Latin twist to it,” Trout says.

Among the Lab Jazz Band’s tunes are “Two Seconds to Midnight” by Alan Baylock and “Birk’s Works” by Dizzie Gillespie.

When the Purdue Jazz Band takes the stage, the focus turns to tunes by Grammy winning jazz arranger and pianist Bob Florence. “He’s recognized as one of the major band leaders and writers of the last 50 years as well as one of the most innovative writers for big band,” Trout says.

“His music can be incredibly engaging, swinging and beautiful, and it can be contemporary and pushing the envelope. We are going to catch a little bit of all of those moods.”

The Purdue Jazz Band will perform Florence’s “Eternal Licks and Groves,” a piece he created for a Count Basie Tribute in 2005. “He uses basic melodic motifs from Basie but does it in a more contemporary way,” Trout says. The band reprises “Body and Soul, a Florence piece on the band’s most recent CD Jigsaw, and also features singer Darby Brignac, a junior from Jasper, IN, on the Florence ballad “We’ll Be Together Again.”

All of Purdue’s jazz bands will again be featured on April 20 in “Jazz on the Hill” at Slayter Center, the final jazz event of the 2007-08 season.
           

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