Miho Hazama conducts Thad Jones – With the Danish Radio Big Band
In Copenhague, for the 100th anniversary of Thad Jones' birth
Cast
Karl-Martin Almqvist — Saxophonist
Nicolai Schultz — Flutist
Jim McNeely — Pianist
Artur Tuznik — Pianist
Peter Dahlgren — Trombonist
Gidon Nunes Vaz — Trumpeter
Mads La Cour — Trumpeter
Per Gade — Guitarist
Program notes
If there's one trumpeter that new generations of jazz fans remember, it's undoubtedly Thad Jones! Dubbed “the greatest trumpeter I've ever heard in my life” by his contemporary Charlie Mingus, he died in 1986 in his adoptive hometown—Copenhagen—after leading the Danish Radio Big Band for over 20 years. To mark the centenary of his birth, the band pays tribute to him, under the direction of talented jazz conductor and composer Miho Hazama—nominated for a Grammy Award and named by DownBeat magazine as one of the “25 for the future”!
The official baton of the DR Big Band since 2019, the Japanese conductor works with the musicians on some of the finest works of her predecessors: Jim McNeely's evocatively named composition Thad; Bob Brookmeyer's Fanfares and Folk Songs; My Centennial, Morning Reverend and the renowned A Child Is Born by Thad Jones himself. The concert closes with the late trumpeter's moving Farewell—preceded by a three-movement work composed by Hazama, and inspired by Thad's iconic epitaph: Live Life This Day.