Metcalfe, Ronn Orchestra

Websites:  No
Origin: St. Catharines, Ontario
Biography:

Ronn Metcalfe is a Canadian jazz musician born July 20, 1930 and died May 18, 1969. He evolved in the Niagara region. Although a tenor saxophonist by training, he was his leadership of his "big band", the Ronn Metcalfe Orchestra, that left his mark in the history of Jazz. His presence inspired musicians with the “fire” and “excitement” of the game. Their performances on stage exuded this energy.

Ronn Metcalfe's influences were mostly contemporary to him — Woody Herman, Les Elgart and Stan Kenton, the songs of Sinatra, and Bobby Darin. He had a reputation for being somewhat avant-garde.

Ronn Metcalfe and his orchestra were best known for the 1962 “single” on which they covered a well-known title, Woodchopper’s Ball, a variation of Woody Herman from Joe Bishop’s Tiger Rag’1. This choice is strange insofar as this large orchestra was rather anchored in contemporary jazz. The Ronn Metcalfe Orchestra version, however, literally gave a twist to the original version by Woody Herman, which had already enjoyed success from 1939.

The Ronn Metcalfe Orchestra performed primarily in the Niagara region. During the year, he played to host dinners for companies such as General Motors, who often invited them, in the Niagara region. Then, towards the end of the 1950s, they performed more in coastal towns – the “beach circuit”, in the summer – and also in venues located near Canadian university campuses such as McMaster (Hamilton, ON), Waterloo or Queen's (Kingston). Their tours also brought them to the American side, to Cornell and Kent State colleges, in particular. The beach circuit was always a more prosperous period, both creatively and financially.

In 1962, during the recording of the album, however, we do not hear the musicians who usually played in the orchestra during weekend concerts, but jazz instrumentalists hired from the Hallmark Studio, a music production studio based in Toronto. Among these mercenaries for a day or a week, we note the presence of Moe Koffman (flute solos), Rick Wilkins, Guido Basso and Rob McConnell.

In this album, you can listen to a selection of classic jazz but also more particular pieces, such as Saber Dance, by Khachaturian, and a few other blues riffles — all remixed in a frantic twist rhythm. We can clearly see that reuse and remixing were and remain very important for jazz, as for creation in general.

On the eve of the recording, the Ronn Metcalfe Orchestra team weren't sure they were doing the right thing by "twisting" these blues. During the night, they changed their minds. The resulting sound spread like a dancing epidemic. The young people started to dance again in couples and with frenzy, like in the Belle Époque!

In a way, therefore, the music of the Ronn Metcalfe Orchestra allowed post-war youth to relive the era of Charleston and to extend a little that of the “Big Bands”. Since the mid-1950s, in fact, they have gradually been losing their audience to rock'n'roll, which is increasingly taking its place on the music scene and making young people dance "around the clock". For Ronn Metcalfe, the twist was therefore a way of giving a “pop” breath to large orchestras while preserving the heritage of jazz music. Musically, it was a successful bet.

In 1963, Ronn Metcalfe is ambitious. He now wants his touring “big band” to turn professional. He therefore hired new musicians: tenor saxophonist Sam Falzone and trumpeter Sam Noto. However, rock'n roll inexorably sounded the death knell of this ambition.

While in 1962 the album was acclaimed and young people were dancing a twist version of an old blues classic, in 1964 their performance at Queen's College was met with nothing but indifference. The students had totally and exclusively embraced rock'n roll.

Ronn Metcalfe inaugurates "The Castle" (1965). Subsequently, Ronn Metcalfe bounced back and re-emerged again, locally, in the Niagara region. He becomes the "king" of the "Castle", a nightclub in Ste. Catharine which focused on 60s rock. during a business and family visit to Ottawa, May 18, 1969.