Sunday Night Jazz Showcase
Program #117 (April 17 at 8:00PM)
In 1975 American big band drummer Frank Capp (b. Frank Cappuccio, 20 August 1931, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA), temporarily took over the duties of Nat Pierce (b. 16 July 1925, Somerville, Massachusetts, USA, d. 10 June 1992, Los Angeles, California, USA), as contractor for the Neal Hefti Orchestra.
When the band abruptly folded, Capp was left with an engagement, for which the club owner asked him to provide an alternative band. Capp formed the group from leading west coast session men and decided to use the occasion as a tribute to Hefti’s great arranging skills. A disagreement with Hefti led to Capp contacting Pierce, whose own arranging talents had graced the bandbooks of both Woody Herman and Count Basie.
Using Pierce’s Basie-style charts and with the pianist as his co-leader, the band was a great success; they began to perform more and eventually were heard by writer Leonard Feather, who headlined his newspaper article: ‘A Juggernaut On Basie Street’.
Renaming their band accordingly, Capp and Pierce made records, the first of which sold well, and continued to work whenever and wherever they could, concentrating on Basie-style material played with enormous zest and enthusiasm, but also displaying great versatility when the occasion demanded.
Unfortunately, the collective personnel make it a band far too expensive ever to tour. Among the personnel have been Bill Berry, Bobby Shew, Marshal Royal, Blue Mitchell, Herb Ellis, Chuck Berghofer and Richie Kamuca, while the singers who have worked and sometimes recorded with the band have been Ernie Andrews, Joe Williams, Ernestine Anderson and Nancy Wilson.
Still led by Capp, the Juggernaut has proved sufficiently well founded to survive Pierce’s death in 1992.
(story provided by Allmusic)
