Big Band

With big bands back in style, the NZ School of Music’s Big Band is in more demand than ever. It is made up of senior music students and is Wellington’s only regularly rehearsed big band. Entry from both jazz and non-jazz majors is by audition.

Big bands (also known as jazz orchestras) emerged in the 1920s and 1930s and include five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, and a rhythm section of drums, bass and piano. Bandleader Rodger Fox says: “People love the power of the big band sound, and the diversity of styles – they can play the standard jazz repertoire, like Count Basie or Frank Sinatra, or blues, funk, and swing.”

The Big Band played at the Wellington Blues Club at Cuba Street’s Bristol Hotel on 6 October 2005 and headlined the Wanganui Jazz Festival on the 22 October 2005. Band leader Rodger Fox (left) is, in fact, Doctor Fox after receiving an honorary doctorate from the University this year. Easily New Zealand’s best known jazz musician, he teaches jazz at the Mt Cook campus.

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