Marcus Belgrave The New Detroit Jazz Orchestra

The big jazz band has been an important feature of the Music of Detroit ever since Don Redman was brought here to serve as musical director for the McKinney's Cotton Pickers orchestra in the early 20's. In recent years we have been blessed with such stellar big bands as the New McKinney's Cotton Pickers, the Jimmy Wilkins Orchestra, the Motown road and studio bands, Eddie Nucilli's Plural Circle, the Austin-Moro Band, the Sound of Detroit Orchestra organized by Strata Records for last year's Afro-American Festival, and a number of others, most being dedicated to preserving and extending the musical advances of past eras in jazz, or to reworking popular song material in a jazz vein.

With the formation of the New Detroit Jazz Orchestra, directed by trumpet star Marcus Belgrave, the Motor City now has a forward-looking big band of young players with its roots in the jazz of the 50's and 60's and 70's, and its branches stretching out into the future of the form, Featuring compositions by Freddie Hubbard ("Back Lash"), Wayne Shorter ("Torn Thumb"), Bob James ("Piece of Mind"), Thad Jones ("Little Pixie Two"), and Maurice White ("Reasons"), and arrangements and original compositions by Detroiters Sam Sanders ("Zaire"), Eddie Nucilli ("God Bless the Child"), pianist John Katalanic, and Belgrave himself ("Dedication"), this exuberant collection of young student musicians displays so much promise and dedication that it's almost frightening -and certainly very exhilarating, to say the least.

Thirty-three musicians between the ages of 13 and 26 share the responsibilities of the Orchestra, which uses a 4-trombone, 4-trumpet, piano-bass-drums-guitar-and-percussion set-up with as many as seven saxophone players in front (eight reeds, with the addition of flutist Jodi Lent) and Marcus himself adding his masterful solos to the mix from his conductor's post. At the Langston Hughes concerts the Orchestra offered spirited (though often raggedy) readings of the complex modern charts and a number of highly promising soloists, particularly James Lockett (alto saxophone), Eddie Taylor (trumpet and flugelhorn), Charles Russell (drums), Sonebeyatta Amungo (congas and vocal on "Reasons"), and the always satisfying Belgrave.

Above and beyond everything else, though, it was the sight and sound of these eager young players coping with the arrangements, taking what were for a number of them their very first solos in public, responding to Marcus's energetic direction, and feeding off the energy of their comrades and their audience which made the concerts a very special kind of event. One couldn't help but have faith in the future of the music here while watching these exciting young performers do their thing, and the more this band gets to play for its public, the more secure that future will be. Let's hear them again soon- again and again and again!