Mahoning Valley Forum

Are there still any fans of big band music?  The people who grew up with this music are no longer with us.

Jay, I can't speak for the folks in Youngstown, but I do know that there are a number of Big Bands that draw huge sell out crowds to their concerts, and one of my favorite is the James Last Orchestra, but unfortunately here in America we are not producing  the number of big bands that we use to, while in Europe Big Bands with big sounds are very popular and sell out venues like crazy.
The James Last Orchestra shuffles between Florida and Germany, and unfortunately most of it's dates are in Europe.
I know that 99% of my pop music collection of 4200 songs are backed by big bands.
Again here in America the best places for big bands is Las Vagues or Atlantic City where the big casinos are located.

Here vare some examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrHr6MLUnrs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrHr6MLUnrs)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKmsMEBtrmU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKmsMEBtrmU)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZY0bb3lBu4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZY0bb3lBu4)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdnOUg13j-g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdnOUg13j-g)

I'll drive past the concert today and give an estimate of how many people attended.

About 200 people attended.

It was definitely an older crowd.  I've never seen so many people with gray hair.

Based on every big band concert that I've ever watched on YouTube and there are many there, that's par for the course. The younger people aren't happy unless it's a drug laced Hip Hop; Rap; Heavy Metal concert, with the volume of the music so bloody high that you can't understand the words.
In my personal quest to build the largest music library that I can I discovered one thing ... America is no longer the leader when it comes to truely good musical talent. Most of the real talent is coming out of Europe while we here in America are producing only second and third rate artists with a very few exceptions, and they are rapidly aging and will soon retire.
Now two exceptions are those artists doing Broadway musicals; semi-classic; and classic material, but they don't get the air play that the rock, heavy metal, rap, and hip hop music gets on the over the air stations.
How many all music stations do we have in the Youngstown market? How many of those stations other than WKTL and WYSU feature music that older people can enjoy?
I'm really glad that Mill Creek Park does present concerts that older people can enjoy, and we should all let them know that we support these concerts and want more.