Thanks to a last-minute scheduling change, drummer Frank Capp should be fresher than he anticipated when his Juggernaut Big Band plays Sunday at promoter Kenny Allan's 11th annual Tribute to Count Basie at the Irvine Marriott.
As originally scheduled, Capp would have been just hours off a plane from Russia, where he was to produce an album for European pop star Anitat Tsoy, whom he calls "the Celine Dion of Russia." But that session was postponed, keeping Capp in the States.
Though he's best known as a hard-swinging drummer and bandleader, Capp wears many hats. At different times throughout his career, he's made ends meet between performances by working as a producer and musical contractor, staffing orchestras for everyone from composer-arranger Neal Hefti to Luciano Pavarotti.
Now, with a global reputation and his career going strong, the 68-year-old Capp hardly has time for himself.
"It must be the economy," he said from his Los Angeles home before running down a list of responsibilities.
It was while serving as a musical contractor for Hefti's band a quarter century ago that Capp first conceived the Juggernaut.
"I'd contracted a band for Neal's date at the old King Arthur Club in Canoga Park," he said. "And he disbanded the band before the engagement. They needed somebody to play and I got the idea to do a tribute to Neal Hefti. I had 25 arrangements he'd given me in the '50s, around the time the ['Atomic Mr. Basie'] recording came out, and I thought we could play those tunes."
But Hefti--the Nebraska-born composer-arranger who wrote the Basie standards "Cute," "Li'l Darlin' " and others as well as the theme for the '60s "Batman" TV series--was the modest type and didn't like the idea of a tribute to himself.
"So," Capp continued, "I got the idea to do a tribute band to Count Basie."
Capp called in friend, pianist and Basie arranger Nat Pierce. Pierce, who died in 1992, had contributed arrangements and the occasional composition ("New Basie Blues") to the Count's band since the '50s, and he was also the group's substitute pianist until Basie's death in 1984. With Pierce's arrangements and charts from other Basie arrangers, the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut was born.
The 15-piece ensemble, now known as the Frank Capp Juggernaut, is modeled after Basie's ensemble, Capp said, but isn't a Basie revival band.
