Here in February 2003, we had one of our wishes come true in the DRBB - we finally had the opportunity to work with the arranger, composer, bandleader and saxophonist Bob Mintzer.
Bob is known especially for his work both as writer and saxophone player in "Yellowjackets" as well as for his own "Bob Mintzer Big Band." We also share some history together because Bob played with the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra right at the time when Thad Jones came over to work with the DRBB for the first time in 1976-77. After this first period with our band, Thad decided to come over and work more with us, and he chose to leave the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Orchestra as a consequence of this. It was a sad decision for their band, but it was a great chance for the DRBB to work together with Thad over a longer period of time. Thad's influence is still felt in our band today, even though there are only four of us who were in the band under Thad's leadership.
I was hired to play percussion because many of Thad's arrangements had percussion in them so I started with the DRBB in 1976 - 77, and had the great privilege of working with Thad from this period and on, for the extended periods he worked with our band.

But back to Bob Mintzer : we had five days of rehearsals with Bob, and it was a real pleasure working with him. It is very evident that he has worked a lot leading big bands, he knows exactly how to help the band learn his music as efficiently and quickly as possible. The DRBB is a large-scale big band based on the size of the Kenton band : five trumpets, five trombones, five saxes and a five-piece rhythm section. This meant that Bob's charts had to be expanded to fit the amount of players in our band. One of our trombone players- Peter Jensen - is also an exceptionally good arranger and he added the extra parts to Bob's charts. Bob complimented Peter on the good job he had done in adding the extra voices to the arrangements. As a Latin percussionist, I was very happy working with Bob, since his music has a lot of influence from Latin American music styles. We played a tune of his called "San Juan Shuffle" that had an extended conga/timbale solo for me in it.
That kept me busy and happy on our tour!

Bob's idea in writing for big bands now is to write soft music. There are very many big bands that play loud all the time, and this can be tiring for both the audience as well as for the musicians in the band. It can be especially difficult for the bandleader standing in front of the band, with the level of volume causing hearing damage! Also, one of Bob's points is that there is something very special about many musicians playing softly together. This creates a very special sound and atmosphere. Of course sometimes the music would call for the band to play loudly, to boost the dynamics, but in general the level of volume was much lower than at normal big band concerts. It was very enjoyable playing this way, and the audience reacted very positively as well.

We played five concerts throughout Denmark, and finished the tour with our final concert at the Copenhagen Jazz House, the best jazz club in our capital city. It was great to have the last job at the Jazz House because we had enough time during our other concerts to get the music sounding as good as possible. The audiences we played for were very responsive at all our concerts, and we received much praise for the music by people coming up to talk with us after the shows. The Danish newspaper music critics were all very positive about the concert at the Jazz House, giving us and Bob very good reviews in all the papers. Two of our five concerts were recorded by the Danish Radio and I hope that the recordings have captured the great atmosphere of the concerts.

Bob Mintzer has very many fans throughout the world, and even in a small country like Denmark we had sold-out concerts every night. Even though Bob's music represents a very wide range of musical styles, for our project we mostly did jazz arrangements. Bob was also a featured soloist on most of the tunes, and his sax playing is incredible! He plays very dynamically, going from very quite soft phrases to very strong and fast-moving hard bebop licks. His playing is always with the best of taste, he never plays to try to impress the audience with his technique. He always plays exactly what fits to the music, no more and no less.
It was our first time working with Bob Mintzer, but it will definitely not be the last. We promised each other to get together again for more concerts as soon as time permitted. I know that Bob has many fans in Japan, and we in the Danish Radio Big Band hope that it will be possible to come and tour in Japan with him. That is one of our new wishes for the future-I hope that our wish comes true!

Ethan Weisgard
February 17, 2003