When James Jordan took early retirement from a 30-year career as a public-school music teacher, he never expected to find himself baton-in-hand again, leading a professional big band in Vero Beach, his new home.
The Jordan Thomas Orchestra is a 17-piece band that debuted in October. It is one of only a handful of professional big bands within a 100-mile radius, Jordan says. Now, three gigs in, the band is about to play its largest room yet – and no doubt its warmest: Vero’s Italian American Civic Association, north of the downtown area not far from the Vero Beach Theatre Guild.
On Thursday, Jan. 5, the band will back up New York jazz vocalist and composer Thana Alexa in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
“Putting this together has just been such a monumental project,” says Jordan, who moved to Vero with his wife Cindy two-and-a-half years ago from Clementon, N.J., when Jordan had finally had enough of driving in the snow. “We had never been to Vero and we heard good things about it, so we came down to visit and absolutely fell in love.”
Cindy Jordan, a retired high school Spanish teacher who herded groups of high school kids on multiple trips to Spain, is now the band’s assistant. She’s helping put together 17 books of 300 to 350 song charts – quite a repertoire for a band barely off the ground.
The orchestra is the second iteration of a group Jordan formed in New Jersey in 1989. That band, also called the Jordan Thomas Orchestra, performed through 2014, frequently featuring musicians from Broadway and the big-name bands – one drummer was music director for “The Lion King.”
The notion of rebuilding his big band didn’t come to Jordan until last year, after he had settled into his new home and found a job at Easter Seals as an employment counselor. “All of a sudden it came to me last year: I really miss playing. We started asking around, do you know any bass players, sax players? It’s mostly been word of mouth.”
The response has been enthusiastic, to say the least.
“One of the musicians told me, ‘Boy, I’ve got to hand it to you. Not only are you making things happen, you’re making it happen in Vero. That’s unheard of.’”
A mix of professional and semi-professional players, Jordan’s musicians include five saxophonists who double on flute and clarinet; four trombone players; four trumpet players; and a four-piece rhythm section: drums, piano, both electric and double bass, and guitar.
With a website about to launch, Jordan expects the group’s calendar to start to fill in.
Putting the band together was like “putting a puzzle together,” Jordan says. “It’s an incredibly diverse group.”
The lineup includes Austin Routten, a 19-year-old jazz major at the University of North Florida; he plays tenor sax and excels at improvisation, Jordan says. Then there’s Claudio Berardi, an accomplished drummer from New York City who retired to this area in 2010. Jordan scouted him when he went down to hear a dance band in Fort Pierce. And saxophonist Sherry St. Petery teaches music at Liberty Magnet School; she’s a favorite among the band members. “She’s a doll. We love her,” says Jordan.
Other musicians are driving from Orlando, including trumpeter Eric Wright, a graduate of Rutgers University and former adjunct professor of music at Bethune-Cookman University now teaching at Valencia College. And Amanda Buzzetta, a 23-year-old Venezuelan-born trombonist, is a regular; she just finished up her microbiology degree at University of Central Florida and plans to become a doctor. She performed in the UCF jazz and wind ensembles as well as the symphony orchestra and is a member of a top Latin band in Orlando.
The senior musician is 88-year-old Charlie Almedia, a former member of the U.S. Air Force Dance Band who left to become a U.S. Army bandmaster. A jazz clarinetist, he toured with Bob Hope, Dionne Warwick and Frank Sinatra, among many others. He drives south from Viera. “He’s got some resume,” says Jordan. “He still plays beautifully and I just love his stories.”
“Music is like anything you love or are passionate about: It keeps you young,” says Jordan, who was a drum major in his high school marching band and played in a 140-member drum and bugle corps. “Music has such a huge empowering effect on people. Once you put that instrument to your lips or your hands on the drums, guitar or piano, it takes you back to when you were 16 years old.”
Together they produce a sound that guest vocalist Tony Fernandez called “a freight train at your back.”
Jordan’s goal is to perform music beyond jazz standards; he’s started assembling arrangements of pop tunes in the hopes of expanding his audience. “I’m trying to make it a more refreshing sound. We’re going to play some of the old tunes but we’re trying to get away from that and do more progressive type music. We’re going to take arrangements of singers like Bruno Mars and Jason Derulo and make those into a big-band style of music. Let’s face it: Most of the music you hear at parties and weddings is electronic music. I think we have a really good opportunity to introduce more people to the sound of a big band, with all that power.”
Next Thursday’s show celebrates a century of Fitzgerald’s influence – the jazz singer was born in April 1917. Jordan, who hopes to take the show to other cities in Florida says vocalist Alexa, who is 29, sings with a voice “almost identical to Ella’s,” says Jordan. “She scats just like her too.”
Alexa, a graduate of New School University in jazz, has played the Blue Note among other New York clubs. She was named a 2016 DownBeat Critic’s Poll Rising Star and is expected to draw a sizable crowd to the Vero club. And one audience member will certainly have Jordan’s attention: Alexa’s husband, jazz drummer Antonio Sánchez, who since 2002 has played with the legendary Pat Metheny Group. He also wrote the Grammy-nominated score to the 2014 movie “Birdman.”
“Of course, the show is about Thana Alexa, but we’re hoping Antonio might sit in with us,” says Jordan.
In the meantime, the band’s rehearsals are open to the public and take place in the evening on the first and third Thursdays of each month. They’re held in the newly renovated space the Italian-American club calls the Bella Italia Ballroom. There’s a bar on premises and snacks are available most nights. So far, even the rehearsals are drawing something of a crowd; Jordan can count on at least 40 showing up.
And it doesn’t hurt that when the band rehearses, the Italian American Civic Association’s president, Tony Andola, makes everybody pizza.
“The guys are gaga over his pizza,” says Jordan. “They come to rehearsal, they get to play jazz, they get pizza and a cocktail – they’re thrilled.”
