An 18-piece big band covers Sinatra, Ella, Black Sabbath and Buddy Rich at The Elephant Room.
Monster Big Band is back at The Elephant Room on Wednesday, July 22, starting at 9 PM. If you've never been, the room is the basement on Congress Avenue, and it's one of the few spots in town that keeps live jazz going every single night. This particular show is part of a monthly residency, so if you miss this one, they'll be back in the same spot next month.
The first thing to get straight is the scale. This isn't a small combo; it's an 18-piece big band, which means a full horn section and a rhythm section working in tandem. That size is where the sound comes from—the kind of volume and weight you only get when that many players are hitting the same chart at once. They describe it as big band jazz with attitude, and you can hear that in the way they approach the set.
The repertoire is where things get interesting. They pull from the standard big band songbook—Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald—but they don't stop there. They bring in Buddy Rich, the legendary drummer who defined the high-energy side of the format, and then they throw in Black Sabbath, which is a heavy metal riff played by an 18-piece jazz ensemble. It's a wide range to cover in one night, and the band plays it all with the same power and precision, treating the jazz standards and the Sabbath riffs with the same weight.
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If you're planning to go, keep in mind the time: 9 PM on a Wednesday. The Elephant Room is at 512-575-2925, the basement on Congress Avenue, and they host live jazz every night of the week, so this is just one evening in a much larger calendar. Monster Big Band plays here once a month, and this is their next turn.
