Ray Brown’s Great Big Band I COULD WRITE A BOOK

June 29, 2024

RAY BROWN’S GREAT BIG BAND

I COULD WRITE A BOOK

Summit Records

RHYTHM: Ray Brown, vibraphone/bandleader/arranger/composer; Miles Brown, bass; Alain Hall, drums; Steve Brown, guitar; Eddie Mendenhall, piano. SAXOPHONES: Mary Fettig, alto/flute/clarinet; Paul Contos, alto/flute; Charlie McCarthy, tenor/clarinet; Marcus Wolfe, tenor/alto/clarinet; Mike Young, baritone/bass clarinet. TRUMPETS: Rich Bice, Louis Fasman, Steffen Kuehn, Erik Jekabson, Don Beck. TROMBONES: John Gove, Dave Gregoric, Dave Eshelman, Dave Martell, Steve Barnhill, bass trombone.

Celebrating twenty-seven years of performing together, Ray Brown’s Great Big Band has reassembled to record one last time. With this CD, you will enjoy over 100 minutes of authentic big band jazz on two-compact discs, a double set of extraordinary music.

It all started when Ray Brown was in eighth grade. His brother Steve played him a Maynard Ferguson recording of a tune called “Where’s Teddy.” Young Ray fell in love with the big band sound. The tune was composed by Maynard’s tenor sax man, Willie Maiden. Funny how things work out. Thirteen years later, Ray Brown found himself sitting next to Willie Maiden on the Stan Kenton Bandstand. It was fifteen years after that unimaginable meeting with the man whose music had inspired him to become a jazz musician, composer and arranger, Ray Brown established his Great Big Band. If you are a big band lover, this album is for you!

On Disc one you will enjoy familiar songs like “Spring is Here” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” as well as patriotic beauties like “America the Beautiful” all spiced up with big band arrangements. The title tune (“I could Write A Book”) is included along with popular songs like “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “How About You” and “How Long Has this Been Going on?” Every arrangement is full of spunk and the fire that a big band brings to the stage. Ray Brown is a former jazz trumpeter and arranger for both the Stan Kenton and Count Basie bands. His beautiful arrangements let each player step forward to show off their multi-talents. For example, on “How Long Has This Been Going On” Steve Brown’s amazing guitar talent is showcased in a beautiful way.

Bandleader, Ray Brown, is often mistakenly thought of as the famous jazz bassist who married Ella Fitzgerald. But this Ray Brown is his own man and a multi- talented bandleader, trumpeter, vibraphonist, and composer/arranger. His band has played on the stages of the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Stanford Jazz Festival. They have headlined at Kuumbwa Performing Arts Center and the Lake Tahoe Music Festival.

Ray began writing for big bands as early as the age of twelve. He’s a 1968 graduate of Ithaca College and spent eighteen enlightened months on the road with the great Stan Kenton in the early seventies. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1975. Brown has travelled the world and was honored with a Fulbright Guest Professorship to Germany in 1990, where he worked with the Frankfurt Rundfunk Big Band and many other European groups.

This is an album full of big band brilliance, reflective of Ray Brown’s excellent arrangements and a choice of twenty-one songs we know and love. Although it’s early, this album includes five Christmas songs you will immediately recognize. Here is an album of music for all seasons.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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