Big Band music, an excellent way to test separates

One of the best genre's of music to test on a prospective hifi separate is big band music. You may ask why?, the ensemble of vocals, an orchestra, test a source unit, amplifier and speakers to the maximum.

A big band uses an orchestra, because, at it's base it's a mix between jazz, swing and crooning. Jazz itself is a mix of American Southern blues music and Western European classical music.

Big Band began to become popular in the nineteen thirties and reached the height of it's popularity during the nineteen forties and fifties. That's not to say it's ever gone away, it's continues to evolve with new musicians and solo artists continuing to expand the genre today.

A big band is usually made up of between ten and twenty five musicians, with the main instruments being,

saxophones
trumpets
trombones

These are usually combined with a rhythm section and of course a singer / singers. The main difference between big band and jazz is the number of musicians playing and the prepared and prior arranged music of a big band.

Some notable members of a big band through history include Louie Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane.

Most of these musicians also played jazz, as the crossover and link between the two genre's was especially strong. Somewhat like hip-hop and rap music present day.