The Rhythm Section Jazz Band (RSJB) is an American jazz band based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The ensemble was formed in June 2002 for the purpose of advocating the performance of American music from the first half of the 20th century. The ensemble refers to itself as a "Little Big Band" and is made up of 10 musicians: 2 alto saxophonists, a tenor saxophonist, a trombonist, a trumpeter, a pianist, a guitarist, a bass guitarist, a drumer, and a singer. Since its inception, the band has toured throughout the United States and has held over 155 recording sessions.
The RSJB's repertoire is taken from the Paul Sherwood Music Arrangement Archive an archive of over 3,500 arrangements for jazz bands and theater orchestras. Some of the gifted arrangers represented in this archive include: Fletcher Henderson, Horace Henderson, Spud Murphy, Lou Halmy, Don Redman, Joe Glover, Dave Wolpe, Earl Holt, Sammy Nestico, Fud Livingston, Will Hudson, Jack Mason, Frank Skinner, Jimmy Dale, Fred Van Eps, Jimmy Lally, Larry Clinton, Larry Wagner, Frank Mantooth, Glenn Osser, David Drubeck, Frank Metis, Walter Paul, Bob Lowden, Jerry Gray, Louis Katzman, Archie Bleyer, Arthur Lange, Ken Macomber, Johnny Warrington, Bill Oliver, George Snowhill, Roger Holmes, Lennie Hiehaus, Art McKay, Hawley Ades, Johnny Sterling, Sid Phillips, Milton Ager, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Buck Ram, W.C. Polla, Marty Paich, Bob Haring, Van Alexander, and Teddy Black among others.
Famous quotes containing the words rhythm, section, jazz and/or band:
“A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman’s life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul’s highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Socialite women meet socialite men and mate and breed socialite children so that we can fund small opera companies and ballet troupes because there is no government subsidy.”
—Sugar Rautbord, U.S. socialite fund-raiser and self-described “trash” novelist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 7, by Studs Terkel (1988)
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)
“Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)