[Dixielandjazz] Here are three promo pieces about Ken Peplowski's touri

[Steve barbone]

Below are three promo pieces about Ken Peplowski's touring "Sing, Sing, Sing
Band. Perhaps more than most want to know but they underscore the
PROFESSIONALISM of Peps and the band.

In these days of ho hum music, these guys/gal shine like a beacon and Peps
is indeed a superb reedman. The ideal guy to play clarinet in this genre,
and very knowledgeable about BG's music and how it should be played.

Cheers,
Steve

Event Profile By Nathan Haselby  FOR SIGN ON SANDIEGO

In 1938 Benny Goodman brought jazz for the first time to Carnegie Hall,
where only classical music had been heard since its opening in 1891. The
grainy recordings that survive from Goodman's all-star performance burn with
exuberance. It is the quintessential concert of the swing era, crowned by
its most recognizable song, "Sing, Sing, Sing." A modern performance of this
concert using Goodman's arrangements would seem to some the very opposite of
jazz -- curatorial not creative. But Peplowski is incapable of mere
imitation, having developed his own inimitable style before working as a
young man with Goodman.

This early connection helps explain why Peplowski recorded a tribute to
Goodman in 1999, "Last Swing of the Century." Here he maintains an
effortless lilt through the most dizzying runs, yet the rhythmic
slipperiness of Goodman, whose speed could sound frantic, is replaced by a
more controlled pulse without any slowing of tempo. The resulting music
might sound overpolished if Peplowski wasn't such an inventive and rapid
improviser, weaving melodies that extend well beyond the '30s.

The Kingdom of Swing Big Band, including other former Goodman colleagues,
will join Peplowski for this concert.

----

Columbia Artists presents  SING! SING! SING!  A Tribute to Benny Goodman
starring Ken Peplowski, clarinet, conducting

Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert opened the door for jazz to be
appreciated as a true American art form. Revisiting this famous concert with
original charts, Ken Peplowski and the Kingdom of Swing Big Band (featuring
several Benny Goodman Orchestra alumni as well as a female singer) will
perform such hits as One O'Clock Jump, Stompin' at the Savoy, Don't Be That
Way, Honeysuckle Rose, Bugle Call Rag, and the climactic finale Sing, Sing,
Sing. 

Clarinet virtuoso and bandleader Ken Peplowski, chosen by Benny Goodman
himself for his final touring orchestra, is a charismatic entertainer who
has been delighting audiences for over thirty years with his warmth, wit,
and humor.

----

Nature of jazz will not allow for Carnegie carbon copy

"Sing! Sing! Sing! A Tribute to Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert"
When: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 7  Where: California Center for the Arts, Escondido,
340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido
 
By: CAM MILLER - For the North County Times

History really does have a way of repeating itself in one form or another,
including landmark jazz concerts. On Jan. 16, it will be 68 years since the
Benny Goodman Orchestra blew the hinges off the doors at New York's Carnegie
Hall in the first jazz concert at a venue mainly reserved for symphony
orchestras. 

However, the spirit of Benny will ride again Saturday at the California
Center for the Arts, Escondido, but it will be clarinetist Ken Peplowski who
will direct the 13-piece Kingdom of Swing Band in a concert devoted to
selections from the Carnegie clambake.

Nevertheless, don't expect to hear a note-for-note replication of Fletcher
Henderson's charts or those of any other musician for that matter. It's not
gonna happen.

"We'll be faithful to the original arrangements until they call for solos.
Then, musicians are on their own," explained Peplowski. "If Benny and his
sidemen were alive today and were to repeat the program from the Carnegie
concert, I can assure you musicians wouldn't and probably couldn't repeat
their solos right on the nose."

Not all of the music performed at Carnegie will be played locally. The
100-minute show is sure to include "Stompin' at the Savoy," "Don't Be That
Way," "One O'Clock Jump" and other Goodman favorites, but the parts of the
concert devoted to little more than jam sessions will be replaced by
truncated versions of the songs.

"For example, we're taking the 16-minute jam on 'Honeysuckle Rose' and
paring it down into a much shorter and, frankly, more enjoyable form," said
Peplowski. "Not everything worked at Carnegie and we're taking that into
account. What we want to do is to generate the same energy, excitement,
emotions and the sense that something special is happening that the Carnegie
audience experienced."

Peplowski's view of that Goodman concert matches in part with what two of
Benny's sidemen at the Carnegie concert told this reporter a number of years
ago. Ace trumpet player Ziggy Elman called the band's performance "so-so,"
adding that "we felt so much pressure, we didn't play as well as we should
have."

Pianist Jess Stacy said he also felt the pressure, but "just playing in
Carnegie Hall inspired me to play better than I ever had."

Three of the musicians playing at the Escondido concert also performed with
Goodman too, though not at Carnegie, but much later. They are bassist Murray
Wall, drummer-vibraphonist Chuck Redd and Peplowski, a member of Benny's
orchestra the final two years of the clarinet virtuoso's life; Goodman died
in 1988.

"No, I didn't play clarinet, just tenor (saxophone). Benny didn't seem to
think a second clarinetist was necessary," the 46-year-old Peplowski said
jokingly.

Redd and Wall, along with pianist John Varro and Peplowski, will play key
roles in the concert. They will perform "Avalon," "Body and Soul," "I Got
Rhythm" and other numbers played by trios and quartets at Carnegie Hall that
involved Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa and Goodman.
Redd not only draws the Hampton role but he also will be Peplowski's partner
for the drawn-out clarinet-drum passage on "Sing, Sing, Sing" that Goodman
and Krupa performed in '38 and which has since been echoed all too often by
others in subsequent years.

"If you listen to Gene's work on the recording of the '38 concert and then
compare it to Chuck's, I think you will hear a decided difference. Chuck
swings a band as did Gene, but Chuck's work is more subtle; he never
overwhelms," Peplowski said. "And he's a superb vibraphonist, too."
Other musicians will be asked to emulate Goodman's important sidemen.
Jon-Erik Kelso, for example, inherits a lion's share of the Harry James
role, although Peplowski said he intends to switch parts among the trumpet
section throughout the tour. And the two songs Martha Tilton sang with Benny
in '38 ---- "Loch Lomond" and "Bei Mir Bist Due Schoen" ---- will fall to
Kim Liggett.

"I was extremely lucky to find quality musicians who could spend as much
time on the road as we will," Peplowski said. "We open our tour in Glendora
the night before we hit Escondido, and by the time we're back in New York,
we'll have been on the road for 10 weeks. That's 50 or so one nighters in 50
different cities ---- just like the bad old days. Ten weeks of togetherness
on a bus calls for a special breed of people. So when I picked the band, I
was looking for musicians who not only are musically compatible but also
have compatible personalities."

Does the tour include a concert in Carnegie Hall? Strangely enough, no.
"We're playing all around New York City but not in the city itself,"
Peplowski said. "It's just the way things worked out. But, hey, we're
performing in Turlock, wherever that is." When he was told that Turlock is
in California's San Joaquin Valley, Peplowski paused, laughed and then said,
"Sounds good to me."

Peplowski was asked if it would be more difficult to keep the music or the
musicians fresh on the 2 1/2 month tour "Good question. "Keeping me fresh is
my biggest worry. The music is no problem, since we'll be making minor
changes in the program each night, but it's up to me to keep the musicians
interested. If I'm on not 'up' and on my game each and every night, my guys
will sense it and I imagine the audience will, too. I can't afford to let
down; that would be unacceptable."