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Aug15
Men of Note are bowing out
2 Comments
Since 1966, the Men of Note have been staples of the Lexington music scene, bringing big-band sounds to some of the biggest rooms in the region and even a couple of gubernatorial inaugurations.Tuesday night, the group will play its last notes with a performance as part of the weekly Jazz at Ecton Park series.
The grand finale will include the presentation of a Community Jazz Service Award by Mayor Jim Newberry and the Bluegrass Area Jazz Association.
Director Byron Romanowitz says the group’s passing is from natural causes.
“I’ve been kidding people, saying the market did it for us,” Romanowitz said in his Lexington home. Over the years, the group’s bookings declined steadily, and “we couldn’t find enough young people to keep it going,” he said.
He shows a chart of the group’s bookings to demonstrate the point. In the early 1990s, when Harry Connick Jr. made big band and standards cool again, Men of Note was getting more than two dozen bookings a year.
Recently though, there have been only a handful.
The group started as an ensemble of musicians who liked to play for fun. At the time, Romanowitz was not playing. He was launching his career as an architect, and “people didn’t want to entrust their million-dollar building to a guy they saw playing in the band on the weekends,” he says.
But by 1977, his career was established, and he joined the group, helping to move it in a more professional direction.
“It was a good band with some of the best players in town,” says Romanowitz, a saxophonist.
He and longtime trumpeter Wayne Collier, who joined in 1974, extol the virtues of big-band music, which they say requires 17 sharp musicians to play. Their lineup over the years included music professors, doctors, lawyers and people who went on to other careers but maintained a passion for music and friendships.
“As with any organization, without personal connections, it can get pretty mundane, unless you’re jumping out of airplanes,” Romanowitz says.
And as with many musicians, Romanowitz, Collier and other members of Men of Note will keep performing with other groups. Romanowitz has his own combo, and Collier, an lawyer by day, is active playing jazz and classical trumpet.
And Lexington still will have local big-band practitioners, including BAJA and the DiMartino/Osland Jazz Orchestra, to carry on the sounds.
Trumpeter Vince DiMartino and saxophonist Miles Osland have played in Men of Note, as have numerous other local notables. Even though there will continue to be big-band sounds in the area, Men of Note’s finale closes a chapter in local music history.
It’s a history they hope to pass on, specifically by donating their charts to the University of Kentucky library, including ones Romanowitz says are identical to charts for Count Basie and Harry James bands.
And they will take with them memories such as playing the historic Greenbrier Inn in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., and the inaugurations of Govs. Martha Layne Collins and Wallace Wilkinson.
Says Collier: “Over the years, I have met all of these great people, played all of this great music and all these great gigs.”
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2 Responses to “Men of Note are bowing out”
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Ted Innes August 15th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
I was the first drummer for the Men of Note playing with them until the mid 70′s. I now live in Central Florida and the leader of the Mount Dora Jazz Orchestra. The Men of Note started in the late 60′s at our piano player’s house on West 3rd street with 3 saxes, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and a rhythm section. After several rehearsals and adding a few more players every week the rehearsals moved to Transylvania University. Most of the musicians were professionals, but not in music, rather they were physicians, professors, lawyers, businessmen and several students from UK and Transy. We played our first gig at a local synagogue. The Men of Note was also the first band to play at the “Bash” which is (was?) held annually after UKs first home football game. This was a well rehearsed band in those days playing or reheasing as a group at least once per week. It is sad to see this group dissolve after so many years particularly when most every high school and college today has a jazz band producing a steady stream of outstanding musicians. Big Band Jazz music is classic and hopefully will live forever, but the public needs to support groups like the Men of Note by providing regular venues to keep this music alive. Byron, thanks for keeping it going as long as you have.
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