About
Us
Now in its 19th year of existence, Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band was born in 1990 as a group of ex-Rosie O’Grady and Disney musicians when the staff musician roles in both places began to erode. They started essentially as a “kicks” band, collecting and playing the arrangements of Matty Matlock and Billy Maxted. After performing at a few jazz festivals, they realized that there was a real market for their “little big band” type of sound. That was more than 18 years and 12 recordings ago.
Going to a Classic Jazz Band set is much like attending a symposium on the history of jazz. You are apt to hear anything from Jelly Roll Morton to Count Basie and all the stops in between. The band uses the five-horn front line typical of such bands as those of Matty Matlock, Billy Maxted and Red Nichols, and the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.Early in the band’s career Bill was able to acquire a major portion of Matty Matlock’s Paducah Patrol library, thanks to Matty’s son, Buddy. All of Matty’s charts were essentially written for 10 musicians, but some were more easily adaptable to the Classic band’s eight. Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band has performed and recorded some of the arrangements with all 10 parts by adding a baritone saxophone and a guitar. In 2007, the 100th anniversary of Matty Matlock’s birth, the band performed tribute concerts with a full 10-member ensemble.
Over the years, the Classic Jazz Band has added quite an eclectic collection of written and improvised jazz to its library. After learning of the band’s desire to tour with a classic library, noted pianist and arranger Billy Maxted contributed quite a few of his great charts. Other contributors include Bob Haggart, legendary writer and performer Joe DeWeese, Dave Wolpe, Scott Whitfield, John Bambridge, Terry Waddell and Dave Mackenzie, as well as the band’s own John Allred and Bob Pickwood.
Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band has appeared at jazz festivals and/or presented concerts in Sacramento, Palm Springs and Mammoth Lakes, California; Davenport, Iowa; Madison, La Crosse and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Sun Valley, Idaho; the Jazz Café at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; and in theaters and jazz clubs all over the country. Overseas trips have taken them to Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, England, Scotland, Italy and South America. In Rome, they performed a benefit for the World Food Program at the Jazz Club Alpheus. They also been the featured band on several Jazzdagen cruises and on the Mississippi Queen riverboat.
A very active recording program has yielded 12 albums, all of which are available on CD. They are: ALLRED HOT AND BLUE, STAND
BACK, LIVE AND KICKIN', HONG
KONG BLUES, RED HOT
SESSIONS, SWING RIOT, MEET
ME WHERE THEY PLAY THE BLUES, VERSATILITY, LEAN,
MEAN SWING MACHINE, THE CLASSIC SWING
COLLECTION, 2 THE
MAX and the latest
one, THINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE.
Check
out all of our Jazz
Recordings.
Members
Bios
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