[TPIN] school jazz bands

[William Ash]

At 06:46 PM 7/8/2006 -0400, D. Michael 'Silvan' McIntyre wrote:
>There seems to be some official format for a "school jazz band."  Trumpets,
>trombones, saxomafones, drums, pie-anner (or synth), and an electric bass.
>No flute, no clarinet, etc.... So what's up with all that?

I think it's merely a reflection of the available music. A big band, along 
the lines of 3-5 trumpets, 3-4 trombones, 4-5 saxes, and rhythm, is a 
relatively standard ensemble (using the term "standard" loosely, meaning 
"as standard as any jazz ensemble can be in a largely jazz-indifferent 
society"). As a result, there are lots and lots of arrangements written for 
such ensembles, at every level from first year players to first chair pros. 
So that's what's available to a school band director (or anyone else, for 
that matter), and that's the instrumentation most school band directors 
will seek out, in order to have a reasonably close correlation between 
musicians and parts.

There are alternatives, but I don't think they're very common. Some 
directors might write arrangements using whatever instrumentation they have 
in the program. Some might have a lead-sheet-based small group, which isn't 
too instrumentation-sensitive. But for most, the most efficient way to 
include the most students is by using the charts they can buy, and those 
charts are written for 5-4-4-4, give or take a horn or two.

Other reasons occasionally may come into play -- for example, some band 
directors with limited exposure to jazz may not even realize it can be 
played on flutes or bassoons or bagpipes or spoons (well, maybe not) or 
whatever -- but I'm sure the available music is the primary reason.



Bill Ash