Continued in the Underground Jazz Orchestra
It's a shrieking orgy; the aural equivalent to an elephant in heat and rhinos getting laid.
And Scott Belck, well, he's Caligula with a trumpet leading the musically orgiastic sonic explorations played by the Underground Jazz Orchestra. It's at turns as intentionally sloppy as a Big Mac from a ghetto McDonald's then, on a hairpin, it's as elegant as Duke Ellington himself.
"The music selection is set up to be a contrast," says Belck, the orchestra's 34-year-old musical director and lead trumpeter after an exhausting performance at The Greenwich, where the orchestra has a standing Monday night gig. "We have a lot of highly orchestrated music, à la Duke Ellington. The other side is the really free-spirited (Charles) Mingus stuff—the raucous, Free Jazz with group improvisation. Sometimes the group just goes nuts!
"No one else is doing anything quite like that around here," he continues. "It's just a chance to cut loose and play beautiful music. Hopefully, that comes across to the audience — that the band is having a good time."
The band is comprised of local twentysomething area Jazz musicians. They are: Russ Haynes, Mike Wade, Chris Nasrallah and Belck on trumpets; trombonists Jim Pelz, Keith Fitzgerald and Joe Price; Josh Quinlan, Andrew Neff, Brian Hogg, Garrin Webb and Mark Ortwein on saxophones; bassist Steve Flora; drummer Tony Franklin; pianist Alex Smith; and guitarist Jack Broad.
And the band has to be having a good time to play music they've either never looked at before or, at least, never before rehearsed in a large-group setting.
"The band does not exist outside of the club," Belck says. New music is passed out prior to the gig, and arrangements are fleshed out on the spot. "So that it's vibrant," says Belck.
The musicians obviously aren't playing for the moola. The 16-piece orchestra often walks away Monday nights with barely more than gas money.
But that is not merely a local occurrence. Belck says that big Jazz outfits have been historically difficult to maintain.
"There are two main reasons why large ensembles aren't thriving and don't exist except as ghost bands," he says. "Economically, they're not feasible, and they're a pain in the ass because there's so many (people). Another thing is, pretty much everybody is a good Jazz soloist, so it's hard to find the space where the guys can play and be featured."
Belck, who served four years in the Air Force, playing in and leading the Air Force Jazz Band, so figuring out who gets to play what and when is not really problematic.
"I've been running big bands long enough that there's no one big thing ... it's all little stuff," he says.
Likewise, Belck says it was fairly easy to attract the group of players to the project.
"The way you do it is you have to start off by getting a couple of good players," he explains. "And then you tempt the other good players by saying you have good players."
Belck himself began playing trumpet at the age of 12 when a friend invited him along to buy a trumpet. Belck says he was surprised when his mother OK'd the purchase; however, she told him it "wouldn't be like the piano." In other words, she expected him to practice.
It's paid off in Belck's musicianship, leadership and vision of a large Jazz ensemble playing the music he loves.
And how long will the love affair last?
"We're just going to play," Belck says. "We're the house band. Everybody made five dollars this last time, so we'll just keep going."
THE UNDERGROUND JAZZ ORCHESTRA plays Monday nights at The Greenwich.
Source: https://www.citybeat.com/music/the-underground-jazz-orchestra-plays-for-keeps-12224225
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