I was so looking forward to this, as it would be my first concert in Riga and Latvia. We had decided on a repertoire spnning from classic big band tunes by Could Basie and Duke Ellington, to more moder funky tunes. And I got to bring some of my own songs and arangements as well. I was there as a soloist, but the idea also was to incorporate the organ into the big band. I think it is so fun going between these roles, playing with a horn section, then being part of the rhuth section and then going off in a solo. That’s one of the reasons I love the Hammond as an instrument. It is so versatile.
We started the concert my the arrangement of The Hellkvist Shuffle the was written for me a couple of years ago. Another arrangement of mine was Skylark, in the reharmonization I did for Trinity’s veresion of the song. Then, I managed to get hold of the arrangement for “Alice’s Fax”, one of Kjell Öhman’s compositions. I have played that song many times, but never with a big band, and I have listened to the big band version quite a lot over the years, so I really enjoyed playing it myself!
Of course we also did April In Paris, whose arrangement actually was made opn Hammond before Count Base recorded it. I did the presentation that in Latvian and it worked well!
The concert ended with Some Skuk Funk, and that’s is laso a song that I always wanted to play.
Great working with Davis Jurka, saxophone player who lead the orchestra, and otherwise work with the Latvian Radio Big Band. The band consisted of students from music universities from around the globe and they all did a great job as well.
I really hope to do more big band. So much fun!
