An audience packed into the Swampscott High School auditorium on Sunday afternoon, getting out of the snow and into the groove of some holiday jazz music.
The Blue Big Band, a group made up of community members ranging from high school students to seniors, performed a concert of jazz legend Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite. The band had been rehearsing in recent months for the concert, which was the group’s first holiday themed show.
Band Director Timo Shanko said his favorite part of the job is seeing the musicians grow from the beginning of rehearsals to the concert.
“When we start rehearsals everyone is pretty concerned they are not going to be up to the challenges of such excellent music,” said Shanko. “After a few rehearsals, their confidence grows and they really come together.
Sunday’s show marked the band’s seventh concert since its founding six years ago by high school Media Arts Instructor JoE Douillette.
“We’re turning into a Swampscott institution of sorts,” said Shanko.
Band membership is open to anyone with a connection to Swampscott through residency,
work, or education. Current members of the Blue Big Band are Aria Balliro, Owen Begin, Douillette, Deb Eames, Terry Lorber, Sara Ewing, Mathew Jensen, Erik Lawless, Terry Lorber, Chris Mancini, Michael McClung, Don McElroy, Valerie Sweeney and Michael Walsh.
“It seems like we’ve got a good thing going here,” said Douillette.
Sunday’s performance of Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite was a reimagining of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet from 1892. The songs transformed the European classical music into a work that swings with typical Ellington style.
Recorded in 1960 with Ellington’s longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn, the suite made familiar melodies like “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “The Nutcracker March” into blues, swing, jazz and Latin rhythms with has syncopation and texture, that come with a big band.
Tchaikovsky’s melodic cores were preserved, while Ellington and Strayhorn allowed for improvisation and personality, which the Blue Big Band highlighted. The overall feel is joyful, elegant, rich and novel, as the suite bridges classical and jazz music.
While Tchaikovsky’s version of the Nutcracker is shown through a child’s eyes, many say Ellington’s often feels like an adult’s dream, in a more worldly sense. Ellington, while renaming many of the pieces in the suite, adds his flair with solos, big build-ups as well as many trumpet and trombone features.
“It went really well,” said Shanko. “A lot of people came out. It’s a good holiday concert.”
