[Dixielandjazz] Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band Tour Report
AmbassCult@aol.com
AmbassCult@aol.com
Sat, 31 Aug 2002 14:21:22 EDT
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Hey Good Buddies on the DJML:
Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band is back on USA soil, got the troops
home at midnight Aug, 8th, finished our last concert at 1:15 a.m. in Serre,
Italy on Aug. 7th, took a nine hour Mini Bus ride to Milan to catch a flight
to London, to Chicago, to San Francisco. I got bumped of the DJML while we
were gone, and I got home to find 1600 e-mails backed up in my in box, yikes,
still sorting through many of them, sorry if I did not get back to anybody.
Started with a ten piece band, four amblance/ hospital calls and a lot of
Hell from three of the guys, we finished the tour with eight men and I hired
a couple of Italians to fill in the last two concerts, we still got standing
Ovations everywhere, and booked back for next year at all festivals, and I
booked us another 20 city tour in December for this year for Traditional
Gospel shows, I will take along "The Pearly Gate Singers" for this tour, it
will include about twenty five or thirty people.
Started in Getxo/Bilbao Spain for six days July 2-7 two shows per day, we
were the only Usa Band on the Festival, which included: Pianist Inaki
Salvador, Pianist Michel Camilo Trio who were awesome, Enrico Rava-Paolo
Fresu "Miles Quartet" "The William Breuker Kolleftief" MMM Trio, and an
evening of young groups who were winners of a European Jazz competition, they
came from Denmark, Finland, and Alemania, and five other regional bands from
around Northern Spain, with some very experimental instrumentation and very
avante- garde ideas about improvisational jazz.
One group called themselves the Cotton Club Jazz Band, they were playing
some pretty simple standard charts of Spencer Williams, Irving Berlin, Fats
Waller, Ted Snyder, and Duke Ellington that souned a lot like they had been
writen by a Jr. High school jazz teacher from Wyoming, who had never been out
of Jackson Hole.
The festiival promoters asked us to march in and play a song with them for
their final number, we said sure what do they want to play? and in what Key?
They called off their hottest chart gave us the key and we let them take the
intro, then we barreled around the corner in our Ared White & Blue Stars and
Stripes and marched across in front of the audience at street level below
their stage to an immediate round of applause from the crowd, the band on the
stage forgot to mention that they had a key change in their charts for the
second verse, and left us hangin out to dry for about two bars, when we
realized what they had done we of course switched keys, but we also took it
up a couple notches in tempo on them and when they caught up with us we
switched keys on them to return the favor, and since they had only their
charts to play they were left high and dry up there fumbling around.
We took off through the audience playing solos and working the crowd and
marched back up to the front and up on their stage and finished up with them
to a standing ovation.
We graciously thanked them for the little jam and the invitation and told
them good naturedly, that if they wanted to have a cutting session with
American Jazz players, they had better practice a lot longer and learn to
improvise without the charts. Then we all had a good laugh and went off to
drink some Beers together.
Next stop was The Hague in Holland where,we played with EVERYBODY in Jazz and
came away from all shows with glowing reviews, Both the Press and the
promoters of the North Sea Jazz Festival said " St. Gabriel's Celestial Brass
Band Brought a much needed and welcomed breath of Fresh air to this Festival."
We tried to go see Warren Vache & Bill Charlap, while we were there, but we
were performing our shows at the same time in different venues, so we missed
them.
July the 12th show included: Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee
Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove, Michel Brecker, Charlie Hayden & Pat Metheny,
Jerry Gonzalez,David Sanchez, Mingus Big Band, Joe Zawinul, Al Jarreau, David
Sanborn, Take 6, Carla Bley, Andy Bey, Kenny Barron, Gary Burton, Danilo
Perez & Christian McBride with Brian Blade, and about twenty five other acts.
Saturday 13th July, the American headliners included, Charles Lloyd & John
Abercrombie, Archie Shepp, The Heath Brothers,Wayne Shorter, Michel Camilo,
Toots Theilmans, Oleta Adams, The Yellow Jackets, Al Di Meola, Diane Shuur
and each night there was a collection of at least fifty other acts from all
over the world.
On Sunday nights show 14th July, were, the likes of Casandra Wilson, McCoy
Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson, Clark Terry, Roy Hargrove & Johnny Griffin, A
tribute to Ray Brown, with Warren Vache, Terrell Stafford & Jessie Davis,
Chaka Cahn, Marcus Miller, Victor Bailey, Ike Turner, Buddy Guy, Gino
Vannelli, John Hammond quartet,,and at least twenty other European acts, and
South American Jazz acts.
Mind you this was only one day, the music went from 4:00 p.m. til 2:00 a.m.
daily.
Impossible to see every act in the show, especially when we were performing
three shows of our own each night in between the Headline acts. The great
fun for us was getting to play to their audiences and coming away with such
great reception.
Quite honestly there were many Great Musicians and Technicians with the
greatest chops you will ever hear anywhere on earth, but there was an awful
lot of Boring music coming off many of those stages with such Big Name Stars.
Most of the so called AllStar lineups were nothing more than egotistical
boring show offs of each players chops and a lot of running up and down the
scales playing as fast as they could all by themselves, and rarely did they
actually play any music together that interested the audience. Now granted
my three Jazz Professors thought these guys were brilliant, but the rest of
the band and a great number of the audience got up and went off looking for
something more musically rewarding and listenable.
Next stop was Vitoria Jazz festival (Spains Largest and one of the top
European Festivals) which included:Don Byron, Jan Garbarek group, Van
Morrison, The Mingus Big Band, Marcia Ball, Buddy Guy, Roy Haynes, Kenny
Garrett, Christian McBride,Nicholas Payton, & David Kikoski, John Scofield,
Joe Lavano, Dave Holland & Al Foster, Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Roy
Hargrove and Brian Blade, Bill Charlap trio, Archie Shepp Quartet, Jane
Monheit Quintet.
Van Morrison's show sold out in two hours, but I can assure you it is more
exciting to listen to his recordings than to see him live, there is just
nothing happening up there that one comes to expect form a major Recording
Star. He was actually quite boring.
They brought us in to open the show and "Warm up the crowd " for Herbie
Hancock, Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove, Well we came marcing in from the
back of the 7000+ seat venue with "Saints" up to the stage and then played
two of Herbie's biggest hits from yesteryear in our own New Orleans
arrangements, Chameleon, and Watermelon Man to thundering applause, then we
gave them our rendition of Summertime and ended with Sonny Rollins' "St.
Thomas," Standing ovation and marched off with Sweet Georgia Brown.
Then Herbie and his group bored them with their 25 minute solos of fast
scales and totally disjointed music, (90 minutes without a melody) it was
really disapointing to see such great talent actually running people out of
the venue after every song, by the end of their show they had less than half
an audience in the venue. Now mind you Herbie and friends called this tour
"Directions in Music" if that's where it's going I don't want to go there,
and neither do the majority of the jazz festival audiences.
San Sebastain Jazz Festival in Spain included: James Brown, Chick Corea,
Elvin Jones,Maceo Parker, Charles Lloyd,Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, Richard
bona, David Murray, Bill Wyman and Abdullah Ibrahim. Again Saint Gabriel's
was the only thing close to Traditional Jazz.
I got a real surprise when we got to Italy and found we were Billed as the
Headliners of the Puglia Jazz festival, which included Terence Trent D'arby,
and Sarah Jane Morris, We opened a major International Fashion Show to
8,000 live audience plus Rai TV live performance to 14 million Italians,
then went around the corner and up the street about four blocks to perform a
two hour Show to 4,000 paid attendees.
All festivals want us back next year and for a lot more money, and after the
December Gospel Tour I am certain we will be a major act in Italy for as
many years as we care to go back.
Had some Hell , but it all worked out well in the end.
Hope you all are having a great summer. It was fun but it's good to be home
again for awhile.
Cheers,
Tom Wiggins
Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band & "Sometimes Circus"
Anybody want's to see our repertoire list for the tour write me off list at:
tcashwigg@aol.com or Stgabrielsbb@aol.com
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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>Hey Good Buddies on the DJML:
<BR>
<BR>Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band is back on USA soil, got the troops home at midnight Aug, 8th, finished our last concert at 1:15 a.m. in Serre, Italy on Aug. 7th, took a nine hour Mini Bus ride to Milan to catch a flight to London, to Chicago, to San Francisco. I got bumped of the DJML while we were gone, and I got home to find 1600 e-mails backed up in my in box, yikes, still sorting through many of them, sorry if I did not get back to anybody.
<BR>
<BR>Started with a ten piece band, four amblance/ hospital calls and a lot of Hell from three of the guys, we finished the tour with eight men and I hired a couple of Italians to fill in the last two concerts, we still got standing Ovations everywhere, and booked back for next year at all festivals, and I booked us another 20 city tour in December for this year for Traditional Gospel shows, I will take along "The Pearly Gate Singers" for this tour, it will include about twenty five or thirty people.
<BR>
<BR>Started in Getxo/Bilbao Spain for six days July 2-7 two shows per day, we were the only Usa Band on the Festival, which included: Pianist Inaki Salvador, Pianist Michel Camilo Trio who were awesome, Enrico Rava-Paolo Fresu "Miles Quartet" "The William Breuker Kolleftief" MMM Trio, and an evening of young groups who were winners of a European Jazz competition, they came from Denmark, Finland, and Alemania, and five other regional bands from around Northern Spain, with some very experimental instrumentation and very avante- garde ideas about improvisational jazz.
<BR>
<BR>One group called themselves the Cotton Club Jazz Band, they were playing some pretty simple standard charts of Spencer Williams, Irving Berlin, Fats Waller, Ted Snyder, and Duke Ellington that souned a lot like they had been writen by a Jr. High school jazz teacher from Wyoming, who had never been out of Jackson Hole.
<BR>The festiival promoters asked us to march in and play a song with them for their final number, we said sure what do they want to play? and in what Key?
<BR>
<BR> They called off their hottest chart gave us the key and we let them take the intro, then we barreled around the corner in our Ared White & Blue Stars and Stripes and marched across in front of the audience at street level below their stage to an immediate round of applause from the crowd, the band on the stage forgot to mention that they had a key change in their charts for the second verse, and left us hangin out to dry for about two bars, when we realized what they had done we of course switched keys, but we also took it up a couple notches in tempo on them and when they caught up with us we switched keys on them to return the favor, and since they had only their charts to play they were left high and dry up there fumbling around.
<BR>
<BR>We took off through the audience playing solos and working the crowd and marched back up to the front and up on their stage and finished up with them to a standing ovation.
<BR>
<BR>We graciously thanked them for the little jam and the invitation and told them good naturedly, that if they wanted to have a cutting session with American Jazz players, they had better practice a lot longer and learn to improvise without the charts. Then we all had a good laugh and went off to drink some Beers together.
<BR>
<BR>Next stop was The Hague in Holland where,we played with EVERYBODY in Jazz and came away from all shows with glowing reviews, Both the Press and the promoters of the North Sea Jazz Festival said " St. Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band Brought a much needed and welcomed breath of Fresh air to this Festival."
<BR>
<BR>We tried to go see Warren Vache & Bill Charlap, while we were there, but we were performing our shows at the same time in different venues, so we missed them.
<BR>
<BR>July the 12th show included: Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove, Michel Brecker, Charlie Hayden & Pat Metheny, Jerry Gonzalez,David Sanchez, Mingus Big Band, Joe Zawinul, Al Jarreau, David Sanborn, Take 6, Carla Bley, Andy Bey, Kenny Barron, Gary Burton, Danilo Perez & Christian McBride with Brian Blade, and about twenty five other acts.
<BR>
<BR>Saturday 13th July, the American headliners included, Charles Lloyd & John Abercrombie, Archie Shepp, The Heath Brothers,Wayne Shorter, Michel Camilo, Toots Theilmans, Oleta Adams, The Yellow Jackets, Al Di Meola, Diane Shuur and each night there was a collection of at least fifty other acts from all over the world.
<BR>
<BR>On Sunday nights show 14th July, were, the likes of Casandra Wilson, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson, Clark Terry, Roy Hargrove & Johnny Griffin, A tribute to Ray Brown, with Warren Vache, Terrell Stafford & Jessie Davis, Chaka Cahn, Marcus Miller, Victor Bailey, Ike Turner, Buddy Guy, Gino Vannelli, John Hammond quartet,,and at least twenty other European acts, and South American Jazz acts.
<BR>
<BR>Mind you this was only one day, the music went from 4:00 p.m. til 2:00 a.m. daily.
<BR>Impossible to see every act in the show, especially when we were performing three shows of our own each night in between the Headline acts. The great fun for us was getting to play to their audiences and coming away with such great reception.
<BR>
<BR>Quite honestly there were many Great Musicians and Technicians with the greatest chops you will ever hear anywhere on earth, but there was an awful lot of Boring music coming off many of those stages with such Big Name Stars.
<BR>
<BR>Most of the so called AllStar lineups were nothing more than egotistical boring show offs of each players chops and a lot of running up and down the scales playing as fast as they could all by themselves, and rarely did they actually play any music together that interested the audience. Now granted my three Jazz Professors thought these guys were brilliant, but the rest of the band and a great number of the audience got up and went off looking for something more musically rewarding and listenable.
<BR>
<BR>Next stop was Vitoria Jazz festival (Spains Largest and one of the top European Festivals) which included:Don Byron, Jan Garbarek group, Van Morrison, The Mingus Big Band, Marcia Ball, Buddy Guy, Roy Haynes, Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride,Nicholas Payton, & David Kikoski, John Scofield, Joe Lavano, Dave Holland & Al Foster, Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Roy Hargrove and Brian Blade, Bill Charlap trio, Archie Shepp Quartet, Jane Monheit Quintet.
<BR>
<BR>Van Morrison's show sold out in two hours, but I can assure you it is more exciting to listen to his recordings than to see him live, there is just nothing happening up there that one comes to expect form a major Recording Star. He was actually quite boring.
<BR>
<BR> They brought us in to open the show and "Warm up the crowd " for Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove, Well we came marcing in from the back of the 7000+ seat venue with "Saints" up to the stage and then played two of Herbie's biggest hits from yesteryear in our own New Orleans arrangements, Chameleon, and Watermelon Man to thundering applause, then we gave them our rendition of Summertime and ended with Sonny Rollins' "St. Thomas," Standing ovation and marched off with Sweet Georgia Brown.
<BR>
<BR> Then Herbie and his group bored them with their 25 minute solos of fast scales and totally disjointed music, (90 minutes without a melody) it was really disapointing to see such great talent actually running people out of the venue after every song, by the end of their show they had less than half an audience in the venue. Now mind you Herbie and friends called this tour "Directions in Music" if that's where it's going I don't want to go there, and neither do the majority of the jazz festival audiences.
<BR>
<BR>San Sebastain Jazz Festival in Spain included: James Brown, Chick Corea, Elvin Jones,Maceo Parker, Charles Lloyd,Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, Richard bona, David Murray, Bill Wyman and Abdullah Ibrahim. Again Saint Gabriel's was the only thing close to Traditional Jazz.
<BR>
<BR>I got a real surprise when we got to Italy and found we were Billed as the Headliners of the Puglia Jazz festival, which included Terence Trent D'arby, and Sarah Jane Morris, We opened a major International Fashion Show to 8,000 live audience plus Rai TV live performance to 14 million Italians, then went around the corner and up the street about four blocks to perform a two hour Show to 4,000 paid attendees.
<BR>
<BR>All festivals want us back next year and for a lot more money, and after the December Gospel Tour I am certain we will be a major act in Italy for as many years as we care to go back.
<BR>
<BR>Had some Hell , but it all worked out well in the end.
<BR>
<BR>Hope you all are having a great summer. It was fun but it's good to be home again for awhile.
<BR>
<BR>Cheers,
<BR>
<BR>Tom Wiggins
<BR>Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band & "Sometimes Circus"
<BR>
<BR>Anybody want's to see our repertoire list for the tour write me off list at:
<BR><B>tcashwigg@aol.com</B> or <B>Stgabrielsbb@aol.com</B>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
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