By Dylan Bradley/ne news editor
The Bucket List Jazz Band will play at 10 a.m. Feb. 20 in College Hall (NCAB 1111) on NE Campus. The group will play original arrangements by clarinetist and arranger Matty Matlock, who arranged music for many jazz bands including Bob Crosby’s The Dixie Land Band in the late 1930s.
The Bucket List started with 92-year-old cornet musician Jim Milan. In the late ’50s, he heard The Dixieland Story by Matty Matlock, which includes 23 Dixieland tunes arranged for six horns and four rhythm instruments.
“What impressed me so much about the album was the big sound he got out of six horns,” Milan said in an email. “It became my all-time favorite album.”
Milan said he became obsessed with finding the charts for the album, which include the melody, rhythm and chords of the songs. The charts were never available on the open market, so Milan tried contacting Matlock directly. Unfortunately, Matlock and his wife had died, and Milan laid the dream of playing Matlock’s arrangements to rest.
A few years ago, Milan’s wife asked if he had done everything that he wanted to do, and he tried to come up with a “bucket list.”
“I could not really think of anything I wanted to do before my demise,” he said, “except for playing the Matlock charts.”
Milan said his break came not long after that when he listened to a new album by trombone player Bill Allred and one of the songs was a Matlock arrangement.
Milan contacted Allred, who sold him some original charts and scores that were acquired from Matlock’s son. After several false starts, Milan formed the group of university professors and symphonic musicians that now form The Bucket List.
The group will play original arrangements by Matlock with two trumpets, two trombones, a baritone sax, clarinet, piano, bass guitar and drums.
