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Photo courtesy of RCA Records.
Phil Woods, Downbeat Magazine's alto saxophone player of 1974 and 1975.
aits and entertainment
Phil Woods, selected by Downbeat Magazine as
alto saxophone player of the year in 1974 and 1975
will perform with the UNL Jazz Band in the Annual
Portraits in Jazz concert in Kimball Recital Hall tonight
at 8.
Woods, who has played with such big name bands as
Brad Jones, Mel Lewis, Buddy Rich and Stan Kenton will
perform with the 20 piece jazz band under the direction
of Randy Snyder.
The concert is sponsored by Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia,
the UNL men's music fraternity .
Advance tickets are $3 for students, $3.50 for adults.
Tickets at the door will cost $3.50 for students and $4 for
adults.
Woods is also giving a lecture on jazz improvisation at
Kimball Thursday at 4 p.m.
Enssmbl to play
The UNL Music dept's Wind Ensemble will present a
free concert at 4 p.m. Sunday in Kimball Recital Hall.
- , -" "
Jack Snider, music professor and band director, will
conduct the ensemble. The group consists of 45 . per
formers from the UNL Music Dept. and will feature UNL
trumpet professor Dennis Schneider.
The program will" include a variety of selections.
Jazz band merges old and new for varied styles
Review By Jerry DeLorenzo
fne Mysterious Flying Orchestra
Mysterious Flying OrchestraRCA APL1
2137 What do you get when you mix an old
jazz producer, some new faces and jazz
that ranges from the big bands of the
thirties to some of the easy jazz of today?
The answer is The Mysterious Flying
Orchestra.
Led by producer Bob Thiele, it is easy
to see why the band, in their debut album,
has such a varied style from one song to
another.
Thiele began with a band in the 1930s
and soon decided he was better at pro
ducing music than playing it. He began by
establishing the jazz labels Signature and
appropriately named, Jazz. The label
carried such artists as Coleman Hawkins
and Pee Wee Russell. Though not
really jazz immortals, they were sufficient
for the time.
In the 1950s and 1960s Thiele began to
work with some of the top names in jazz.
He conceived the jazz session between
Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.
He also brought Ellington and John Col
trane together for a session and took over
Impulse records, the jazz label for ABC
during the sixties, which signed such jazz
musicians as Coltrane and McCoy Tyner.
Another jazz great
Thiele 's past does not seem to be catch
ing up with rum in the Mysterious Flying
Orchestra's debut album. In fact, he may
have discovered another jazz great in Lon
hie Liston Smith who plays keyboards
and composed the songs "Shadows" and
"Summer Days."
"Shadows" is definitely a progressive
style that uses a heavy bass background
mixed with strings and a saxophone solo
hading a good part of the song. "Sha
dows" gives one a soft feeling that is
backed up with the strength of the bass,
which seems to be giving the rest of the
music needed support. The combination
comes through nicely.
Summer Days", a song that features
an easy going melody with both a sax and
flute solos, reveals a hint of progressive jazz
in this cut. It is the 'kind of song one puts
on after a hard day or just to relax.
Donald Smith, a very capable floutist,
leads most of the song with a mellow
flute that holds the song together in an
easy way.
Thiele 's prior committment with the
thirties docs show up in songs suclras "A
Dream Deferred" and "There Once was a
Man Named John."
Muzak Hall of Fame
"A Dream Deferred" is a mellow
song that could almost apply for member
ship in the Muzak Hall of Fame because
of its reliance on strings. However, elec
tric piano and flute solos save the song
from Muzakdom and place it on the
narrow line between thirties swing and
jazz.
There Once Was A Man Named John,'
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sung oy inieies wue, leresa orewer,
proves that love is not only blind but tone
deaf. The era of the thirties swing bands
encompasses the song, a tribute to the
late John Coltrane and it is no more jazz
than Elvis Presley.
'There Once Was a Man Named John'
is really the only drawback to the album.
The cuts are easy going and mellow, some
thing you can entertain with or listen to in
a relaxed moment. :
Thiele 's background in jazz and his
ability to recognize talented artists ' is
evident in The Mysterious Flying Orches
tra. Thiele is inventive while incorporating
what he has heard and learned from the
greatest jazz musicians.
The album, on Thicle's new Doctor
Jazz label for RCA records, is one where
great strides can be made. If Thiele contin
ues to include various styles great things
could happen, but more importantly, some
good new music could come out of the
Mysterious Flying Orchestra.
Opera singer returns to Lincoln
By Charlie Krig
Maureen Forrester was singing in a Montreal choir
when Bernard Diamant, a prominent Dutch baritone
heard her singing.'
"You have a lovely voice, my dear," Diamant told the
18-year-old girl, "but you don't know how to sing."
With that, Diamant launched the career of Forrester as
one of the world's leading opera singers.
This season Forrester will perform with the Me tropoli
tan Opera and the San Francisco Opera and other concerts
throughout the world.
Although she's going to Europe three times this year,
Forrester will stop in Lincoln for a master class today at 4
p.m. in Westbrook 119 and a concert on Friday at 8 psn.
in Kimball Recital Hall.
A limited rvrnber of tickets are available from the
Kimball box office at $3, students, and $5 general
admission.
Forrester started her musical training with vlzzo
lessons at age five, then waited 13 years until her voice
matured before beginning vocal lessons.
Montreal debut
She sang on radio prior to making her formal recital
debut in Montreal in 1953. Orchestral engagements and
recital tours of Canada followed.
Forrester was a well-known contralto (the lowest
female singing voire) in her native land by the time she
made her U.S. debut with the New 'York City Opera
Company in 1966.
Since then she has won several awards in Canada in
cluding the presentation of her life story during the
Canadian Exposition. She has even become known as
'Canada's Musical Ambassadress."
During a telephone interview last Thursday, Forrester
said it took hard work and dedication to become famous.
In fact, she said before she started vocal training she some
times wasn't a very good singer. So she went to work to
accomplish what she thinks every performer must do:
"Spend most of your time perfecting your art."
One can learn interpretation by rehearsing but having
just "a voice" isn't enough any more, she said.
Combined media
"People want opera to be more than just beautiful
music. They want it to be a combined media.
"You can't just stand there with a spear and sing," she
said in reference to the old Wagnerian style of opera.
"You have to know how to move, to act and you even
have to look the part."
But once you've made it to the top you can't be
lethargic, she said.
Even though she practices yoga and some sports such
as skiing to keep fit, she doesn't practice singing anymore.
She is back in Lincoln, for the third time because I've
found college students to be very receptive," Forrester
explained. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a large
university in the middle of "nowhere, a large population
center in the middle of a sparsely populated area of land."
After 2S years of rehearsal, Forrester has a large
selection of material. Her concert in Lincoln will include
works by Bach, Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Manuel
De Falla, and J . W. Franck.
ltd be a dkaster to be tiuck with only one or two
programs. You'd perform as dull as you'd look," she said.
Besides her concerts, Forrester said she does an
occasional talk show because it "takes away the stigma of
the idea of dumb people with nothing but a voice. It
shows them that you're just another person."
"I'm not really the type to be a prima donna. I have to
live like one in a way, but I try to live as normally as I
can," she said.
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Photo by Christian Stt'mar.
Maureen Forrester, well -known contralto, is known
as "Canada's Musical Ambassadress."