Post #346098 by Mr. Ho on Mon, Nov 26, 2007 4:21 PM

ONyabirri - good points here!

I have lots of opinions about this subject :wink: being a classically trained percussionist and also a member of WAITIKI and the founder of our Esquivel Orchestrotica project.

I am not surprised you don't hear this material with bigger orchestras; what sells the most is usually the beethovens and mozarts and they have to do that stuff to stay alive esp in towns without lots of orchestral options. also, the whole concept of "pops" is generally a turn off (often a valid one) for the players and conductor alike who usually do these shows because they need to pay the bills ! Xmas pops and 4th of July are big ticket sellers. between that and the classical stuff, it doesnt leave much room for programming things outside the norm - and if it falls into the pop category, it's even harder to sell i the programming I think.

The Mayor and I have been discussing this recently and may be putting together a new project to focus on some of this type of music - the big big bongo beats, and ratpacky bigband sounds...classic mambo and crime jazz - in the jazz orchestra vain, this stuff is credible and definitely has it's challenges especially in the horn parts. There is even an existing orchestra who I think could be great to team up with given their mission statement...

The other issue here is funding - we've programmed the Orchestrotica only about 3x in the US and 1x overseas. the three shows in town we did were mostly money losers - meaning the band lost money on this entirely - usually because of the main expense being the musicians hall rental, and marketing the event. people dont want to pay 20$+ to see a band in a bar on a weekend unless you have a lot of following or have a big name behind you; this is why you dont see a lot of big bands : few spaces to play, no crowds, and not a lot of support/interest financially from clubs and sponsors (perhaps). In addition, getting the best players to commit to projects like this is quite difficult because good freelancers have very busy schedules and usually cost more (as they should). I don't think we ever managed to rehearse the entire Orchestrotica with EVERYONE there until we got to mexico! Then there is the equipment side (space aside, the percussion requirements are usually enormous and the stage equipment can multiple out of hand if you need PA on top of all the regular gear). So, if you dont do it in a club, then you move it into a concert hall but you have all the other issues i discussed here to deal with. ANyhow, that aside, what's a good project without it's challenges?

I am hoping that we can assemble up in boston a good group that can have a solid set of mambo/dancable material, ratpacky stuff (sinatra, vocalists etc), and exotica/esquivel/space-age sounds to fill out a night's entertainment. Then maybe add the spaghetti westerns, NFL films soundtracks, and more! With good players and a good entertainment angle, i think it could be stellar. We might start with more of a classic big band setup , then grow out the percussion more, auxiliary instruments, singers, and finally string section. You are right that a lot of those albums were "Record" albums and not setup for live performance so much. But we can try to change that! haha. ANyhow, I hope that we can do all this without also having to transcribe all the charts as we did have to for the Esquivel thing - hopefully some of these other composers still have material!

Okonkuluku!