Hear that swing? Big-band era plays on through Erie's Presque Isle Jazz Orchestra

Ask a music geek or a historian and they will probably tell you that the big-band era that was born with radio relay of the Benny Goodman band at L.A.'s Palomar Ballroom on Aug. 21, 1935, ended some 10 years later, a victim of wartime rationing, recording bans and changing musical tastes.

Though the big bands waned in popularity, they never really went away. Big bands led by Teddy Armen, Gene Parlette and Dale Higgins filled the bandstands in the Erie area at proms, dinner dances and charity balls through the 1970s. The Haener brothers, Don and Fred, played in Parlette's band before forming their own band. Another pair of brothers, Chuck and Doug Dressler, had a big band, members of which joined the Dave Stevens Big Band in an almost biblical procession that culminated in the formation of the Misery Bay Big Band in the most recent decade.

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Swanky balls and proms are now a distant memory; bands now play for listeners, not dancers, yet they still retain the basic DNA of the classic big bands, carrying the torch for large ensemble jazz.

Or maybe that should be medium-size ensemble jazz. At 10 pieces, Erie's Presque Isle Jazz Orchestra, founded and directed by Allen Zurcher, is somewhat smaller than the classic 17-piece jazz orchestra, but its instrumentation is an ingenious distillation of the classic big band lineup of trumpets (Jeff Gibbens and Dillon Shidemantle), trombones (Mark Dressler and Kent Tucker), saxophones (Bethany Dressler, Scott Meier, Zurcher) and a rhythm section (pianist Dan Hallett, Chris Von Volkenberg on bass and Brad Amidon on drums). The band's sound palette is enriched by the multiple instruments played by the saxophonists.

The Erie jazz scene isn't large, but it is close-knit, so it's no surprise that these players have come through multiple groups; Mark Dressler is Doug Dressler's son (Bethany and Mark Dressler are married), and Gibbens, who directs the Misery Bay Big Band, got his start as a sub in the Gene Parlette band in the mid-1970s while still a student at McDowell High School.

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Those are deep Erie roots, some of which are shared by Zurcher. Yet the native of Sheffield in Warren County and graduate of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania formed the idea for the PIJO in Colorado.

That's where Zurcher wrote arrangements for a 10-piece band in 2008 as his doctoral dissertation at the University of Northern Colorado.

"I liked the format of the group," Zurcher said. "There were enough musicians that I could voice things fully, enough musicians for every note in the chord."

Ten-piece bands are rare in jazz, and existing arrangements are scarce. So, after returning to his native northwestern Pennsylvania, Zurcher wrote his own book of intricate, richly textured arrangements.

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But it took a decade before he found the musicians to bring the music to life. After a period of rehearsals, the Presque Isle Jazz Orchestra made its debut in August 2019 at Erie's Blues & Jazz Festival. The band would play only once more, sharing a concert with the Mercyhurst Jazz Ensemble, before the pandemic choked off further performance opportunities.

The outlook for future gigs, like everything else in this time of uncertainty, is difficult to predict. With budget-conscious presenters in mind, Zurcher wrote a book of arrangements for a seven-piece Presque Isle Little Big Band (the orchestra minus Shidemantle, Tucker and Meier with Sonny Froman on drums), and that band played in September at the Dorchester Drive Baptist Church on a bill with the Misery Bay Big Band, with which it shares members. Still, as Zurcher admits, "it's not intended to be a commercial group."

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Is there a future for large ensemble jazz — or a jazz scene of any kind — in the Erie area?

"For better or worse, I think that the music scene is going to continue to evolve and adapt to the society that it's in, which it has always done," Zurcher says. "In the 1940s, big-band swing was the most popular music in the country and people like Benny Goodman could make $25,000 a week. That didn't last, so, as a musician, I have to be willing to adapt. Whatever it is, wherever I'm at, I want to continue to work."

Preferably with a jazz orchestra, big or little, on the bandstand.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Presque Isle Jazz Orchestra group keeps big-band era music going in Erie, PA