Could your local orchestra do this?

[Chuck Jackson]

I daresay that most of the members of the Las Vegas Phil could. A good friend of mine, Tom Wright, who is Principal Trumpet has years of showroom experience as do his section mates. The trombones all seem to play in one show or another with Nathan Tanouye, Principal Bone, being a stellar jazz player and composer.The woodwinds have a bunch of people who have often do play the shows on the strip. I think every bass player plays as much jazz as legit, and the Principal Percussionist is the head of Jazz Studies at the Las Vegas Academy and plays great jazz on set and vibes. They are incredibly versatile, they sound legit when needed and can play all commercial styles when asked. Sorry I don't have a snazzy picture to show you they can, you'll just have to take it on faith.

Chuck

[Tom Mason]

Yes, we can.

Although we aren't the Memfus Symphony, the one in Jonesboro can do this, if the following happens;

I move to a sax slot. Bassist 3 or 5 does bass. 2 clarinets and an oboeist joins me on sax, All trumpets and trombones cover their parts. 3 set drummers and a pianist are there. Conductor is the trombone professor, and we're 1 trumpet short until one of our board members who subs on trumpet joins us. We would have 4 saxes, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 3 set drummers, 2 bassist, and 1 piano.

[Tom Mason]

Shame on me. I didn't consider Dr. Horton on trumpet. That would make us 5 trumpets, and you know about Ron's playing ability.

[ken k]

our pops orch often does a dinner concert and we have a big band play a set. The woodwind players doubling on sax are not the greatest jazzers but can get by and sound fine on the written stuff.
our brass players are probably better at the jazzier stuff than the classical. two good bass players, two percussionists with good set chops and a french horn player who plays great jazz piano
k

[normrowe]

A few years ago our orchestra could have put something like that together pretty nicely, especially since one of our trombone players was Archie LeCoque, long-time soloist with Stan Kenton! He has since retired from the orchestra, though.