Any opportunity for jazz musicians to play Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn is "a blast."
That's from Vancouver musician Fred Stride who on Friday, Dec. 6, will bring his 15-piece orchestra to Coquitlam to perform Ellington and Strayhorn’s arrangement of "The Nutcracker Suite," a classical ballet composed in 1892 that’s set on Christmas Eve.
For Ellington and Strayhorn’s 1960 version of the Tchaikovsky favourite, there are nine jazz arrangements with "jazzy" names — the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy” is recast as “Sugar Rum Cherry” while the “Dance of the Reed-Pipes” becomes “Toot Toot Tootie Toot.”
The American band leader, as well as Strayhorn, a jazz pianist and composer, “gave us something really fun to perform,” Stride told the Tri-City News in a recent interview.
“It’s a fairly concise work, but there’s also lots of room to improvise within that framework.”
Still, the 30-minute arrangement isn’t the only thing on his program.
Stride and his orchestra will also ring in the holidays with Christmas tunes such as “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and other standards.
Produced by Gregory and Kris Elgstrand, The Nutcracker Suite and More Songs of the Season follows the Coquitlam brothers’ April 2024 concert Beyond Category: The Music of Duke Ellington with the Vancouver Jazz Orchestra, at The Cultch in Vancouver.
Over the years, they’ve also put on shows in Toronto, New York, Seattle, Halifax and Minneapolis; however, the Ellington/Strayhorn tribute will be their first presentation in the Tri-Cities.
“It is a rare treat to hear this piece of music live with a full jazz orchestra — let alone the Fred Stride Jazz Orchestra, which features some of the best jazz musicians in Metro Vancouver,” Gregory Elgstrand said in an email.
“And, as it will be that time of the year, the orchestra will play some fantastic arrangements of some well-known (and other not so well-known) songs of the season.”
Tickets at $52/$44/$36 to hear the Fred Stride Jazz Orchestra at the Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam) can be purchased from the box office by visiting the facility’s website or calling 604-927-6555. The Evergreen show starts at 7:30 p.m.
The Fred Stride Jazz Orchestra
- Saxophones
- Steve Kaldestad, Ingrid Stitt, Jon Bentley, Geoff Claridge, Ben Henriques
- Trumpets
- Michael Kim, Derry Byrne, Brad Turner, Jocelyn Waugh
- Trombones
- Dennis Esson, Cam Henderson, Ellen Marple
- Piano
- Julian Borkowski
- Bass
- Andre Lachance
- Drums
- Bernie Arai
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