Savannah Music Festival LIVE - 217 - Battle Royale
Original air date: week of August 10, 2009
The tradition of instrumental competition on the bandstand in jazz goes back to the origins of the music. By the early 1930s, such competitive on-stage battles became known as "cutting contests," and they almost always produced some terrific entertainment for the audience in attendance. In this episode of SMF Live, we listen to a concert we produced at the 2009 Savannah Music Festival entitled Battle Royale. It featued a variety of instrumentalists squaring off against one another, but the purpose was completely musical. Driven by the creative conception of Marcus Roberts to put two rhythm sections on stage side by side, The Clayton Brothers and the Marcus Roberts Trio provided the foundation for an explosive display of musicality featuring such artists as Wycliffe Gordon, Andre Heyward, Terrell Stafford, Scotty Barnhardt and many others.
