Home | Sound samples | Order CD

Interview With KJO Director Vance Thompson

How did the band get started?

While living in Chicago I became interested in writing for big band. There were several bands in town that played regularly. They each had different libraries and played music associated with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Woody Herman, and Thad Jones as well as some original material from local writers. As a way to get my foot in the door, I started doing some arrangements and taking them around to my favorite groups.

By the time I got back to Knoxville in 1999, I had written several charts and had ideas for several more. I wanted to keep writing, but needed a professional outlet. Since I knew many of the musicians from when I’d lived here before, I started calling around to see if we could put a band together. As it turned out, we were able to put a great band together.

How did you get the idea to tour overseas with a 17-member group?

The idea actually came from trombonist Don Hough. Don jumped up in front of the band after one of our rehearsals and said: “This group is outstanding. We have great players in every section, we have excellent soloists, and we have our own library of original music. This is too special. We should go on tour. How many of you want play the Montreux Jazz Festival next summer?”

As you can imagine, that was an easy sell. Within a few weeks, we’d made plans to record our first CD, and were making initial travel arrangements. After submitting our materials, we were invited to perform at Montreux, Jazz à Vienne, and Ezcaray. We filled in some dates in between and made two weeks of it.

How did you record this CD?

The day before we left for Europe I finally made the decision to purchase a portable 16-track hard-disk recorder. I hadn’t done it sooner because we couldn’t pay cash, and I didn’t want to incur any debt. I realized, though, that this was the only opportunity I’d have to capture that specific group of players performing in Europe. The band was playing so well, I just had to do it.

Our sound engineer, Mischa Goldman, went to the store with me to pick out the recorder. Mischa insisted that we buy the newest model, a Yamaha 4416. The only problem was that the flight cases had not yet arrived.

“Oh, it will be fine” he insisted. “I’ll carry it on my lap the whole way there and back if I have to.” And that he did….we traveled to Europe and back with a brand new $4,000 machine, purchased on credit, protected by $6 worth of foam and duct tape.

How would you describe the theme of this project?

"A year in the life of the band" is a collection of live recordings that were made during 2001-2002. The selections represent the very best performances that the band gave during that year. But they also represent a very wide stylistic palette.

"Angst," "Man, What a Beautiful Day" and "Scenes of Knoxville" are all fairly modern sounding. "Skylark" is a ballad feature. "Dig Uncle Will" and "Mean to Me" sound like they came straight out the Basie library. "Martha Stewart..." is a blues arranged in the style of Thad Jones, and "Bowl of Cherries" sounds like a 16-piece Dixieland group.

What can you tell us about your original tunes?

Each of the originals were done with the idea of featuring the band's strengths. I envisioned "Angst" as something that the rhythm section could 'eat alive.' As you can hear on the record, they did not disappoint.

"Man, What a Beautiful Day" is dedicated to my father. I heard this as a kind of release from the tension in "Angst." On the tour, we always performed them back to back. The CD segues from one to the next just as we performed them live.

"Martha Stewart Ain't Got Nothin' on My Baby" is a tribute to my wife, Emily, an original renaissance woman. I didn't realize she was so handy when we married, but soon discovered that she could outpaint, -plumb, -wire and -build most men, including me.

The tune is a blues shuffle which tries to capture Emily's "anything you can do, I can do better" attitude. I composed seperate backgrounds for each of the five soloists and am particularly fond of the woodwind backgrounds behind the bass solo. The band swings this one from start to finish.

Tell us about the guest soloists: organist Dan Trudell and pianist Donald Brown.

Dan Trudell is one of Chicago's best kept secrets. He is a brilliant player who plays with an infectious enthusiasm. The concert that these recordings come from ("Dig Uncle Will" and "Mean to Me") was a break-out event for the band. It was the group's first really great performance. Not that they hadn't been playing well before, but this performance seemed to really ignite the band.

Donald Brown has been one of my greatest inspirations. He is an absolute genius composer whose music has been recorded by Joe Henderson, Donald Byrd, Ron Carter, Carl Allen, Mulgrew Miller, Kenny Garrett, Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, and many others. He has been nominated for two Grammy awards, and has served as composer in residence at the Julliard School of Music in New York City. We are very lucky to have him in Knoxville.

We commissioned Donald to write "Scenes of Knoxville" for a performance at the Knoxville Music and Heritage festival in October, 2001. The piece was inspired by James Agee's poem "Knoxville: Summer 1915." The program also included a performance by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra of Samuel Barber's piece of the same name.

<<Back