.jpg)
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
ABOUT US
OUR MISSION
Mission: The American Big Band Preservation Society, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, promoting, and performing the sounds and history of the Big Bands, with an emphasis on education and keeping this art form in schools.
The Big Band Story: Big Band music is a unique musical art form, genre, and specialized instrumentation. Created by many cultures in America, this style quickly became the most popular music in the world. Thousands of Big Bands criss-crossed the country during the 20th Century, touring myriad venues, performing for dances, on the radio and on million-selling recordings. Each band employed 10 to 20 (or more) musicians. Almost all of these groups had specific and original arrangements written for them by brilliant composers and arrangers. It is truly the soundtrack to the 20th Century.
Yet, of the hundreds of thousands of arrangements (“charts” as they are called in the business), a vast majority are unfortunately lost. Many of these original, one-of-a-kind treasures ended up in dumpsters or languished in basements or garages.
Fortunately, there is hope for a bright future…
OUR HISTORY
OUR FUTURE
While working on a Big Band recording project, several musicians in Boston were approached by the granddaughter of a famous Big Band leader, active in the 1940s. The woman asked where she might donate this Big Band music collection. It was assumed by all that the “Big Band Museum” or something similar would be the easy answer. After some research, the musicians discovered that no such repository existed. It was at that moment that the idea for the ABBPS was born.
The organization was founded in 2007 by a small group of individuals passionate about this music. It was then officially incorporated and registered as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The first donation of a Big Band arrangement library included over 100 original and hand-written arrangements. Since that time, the collection has grown to include nearly 10,000 musical arrangements, photographs, recordings, radio broadcasts, memorabilia, interviews, musical instruments and more. The archive includes libraries and arrangements from such iconic bandleaders as: Henry Busse, Boyd Rayburn, Ted Herbert, Vaughn Monroe, Harvey Cohen, and many others.
Thousands of priceless artifacts have been saved and preserved, thanks to the dedicated work of our team, members, and contributors just like you, but simply preserving these materials is not enough. Our focus is preserving, promoting, and performing.
We sponsor a Youth Big Band which meets weekly during the school year, and presents four or more concerts and dances per season, educating the next generation of musicians.
Our arrangement library is currently about 40% digitized. As each arrangement is preserved digitally, it will also eventually be made available for purchase, rental or, in some cases, for free.
Our school programs will launch in 2025, making hundreds of these titles available for students, teachers, and researchers.
Our Big Band programs provide the opportunity for venues to present the authentic live sound fo a Big Band. We offer the complete package for The American Big Band Experience, to transport audiences to a different time and let them experience the timeless magic of the Big Band sound.
Check out our blog to see our Youth Big Band, events, and work in the community in action.
MEET THE BOARD
Dan Gabel
President and CEO
Hailed by the Boston Globe as “the real deal, [a bandleader] that looks and sounds like the 1940s” and by the Syncopated Times as “the champion of Big Bands and vintage jazz”, Dan Gabel is a trombonist, arranger, bandleader, historian, professor and educator. His popular big band, Dan Gabel and The Abletones, has played throughout the northeast and is featured on numerous recordings and video/television programs.
As a busy sideman, Dan Gabel tours internationally and has recorded with The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra, as well as first-call with many other groups. Gabel was chosen as the Musical Director of the Vaughn Monroe Orchestra, as well as curator of the famous bandleader’s archive by Monroe’s family. Since 2014, Gabel has served as the President and CEO of the American Big Band Preservation Society, a non-profit organization based in Boston and dedicated to preserving, promoting, and performing while keeping music in schools.
Considered an expert in Jazz, Big Bands, and the Great American Songbook, Dan Gabel is a Lecturer at Westfield State University. He has presented guest lectures at several colleges and universities, including Harvard, MIT, Indiana University, and as clinician and director for high school and collegiate festivals. In 2015, Gabel founded and still directs the Worcester Youth Jazz Orchestra, part of the Youth Orchestra program for young musicians in central New England. Dan Gabel holds two bachelor's degrees from UMass Amherst, and a Masters Degree from New England Conservatory. You may also find Gabel working as a busy arranger and member of ASCAP, musical director and contractor for various groups, or as a musician with his Brass Quintet, theatre pit orchestras, symphony orchestras, backing up pop singers like B.J. Thomas, or various other musical settings. When not on the bandstand or in the studio, Dan enjoys reading, traveling, hiking National Parks, and chasing trains.
Alison D. Rogers, Esq.
Secretary
Alison D. Rogers, Esq. has practiced law in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Florida prior to founding Rogers Law Practice. Since opening her own practice, Alison has also been admitted to practice in Pennsylvania.
After growing up in south Florida, Alison sought education and adventure around the world. She studied international diplomacy at Boğaziçi University in Turkey, and is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Michigan Law School. She plays trumpet, and is passionate about jazz, Big Bands, and bringing music to everyone.
She is certified in Crisis Intervention Training by the NYPD, Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a provider for the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Metropolitan Washington Employment Law Association, and Florida National Employment Law Association. https://www.rogerslawpractice.com/
Barbara Kudzol
Treasurer
Biography coming soon!
Warren Ertle, PhD.
Member, Copyist
Warren Ertle is a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz pianist based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition at The University of Alabama. A native of Central Mississippi, Ertle earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Mississippi College (2016) and a Master of Music from The Boston Conservatory (2019). He has a passion for early American popular music from the 1920s-1940s, and has an interest in writing compositions that are influenced by, and interact with, this body of work.
Ertle has written for various soloists and ensembles and his music has been performed across America as well as internationally. He is an avid performer of both classical and jazz styles and has been seen with the Mississippi Wind Symphony, the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra of Jackson, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Dan Gabel and The Abletones, Brigade Big Band, and regularly with Category VI Jazz Combo. In 2019, Ertle founded Dr. Warren Ertle’s Corpse Revivers, an authentic 1920s dance orchestra. He is married to vocalist, actor, and educator, Jamie Shannon Ferguson Ertle, and the duo perform various jazz and musical theater styles across the southeast. Ertle also currently serves as the pianist and staff arranger at the 41st Army Band. He is a board member of the American Big Band Preservation Society, Inc., and a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity.
Laura Crook Brisson
Member, Archivist
Laura Crook Brisson enjoys a multifaceted career as an orchestral player, chamber musician, and librarian. She is the archivist and librarian for MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), She plays horn in the Vista Philharmonic Orchestra and performs often with other New England ensembles such as Emmanuel Music, New Bedford Symphony, and Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra.
Before moving to Boston, Laura was a founding member of the Washington DC-based wind quintet, District5 and can be heard on their debut album, the complete Chopin Preludes for wind quintet. Laura’s passion for chamber music and innovative programming has led to unique and memorable performances with the Smithsonian Chamber Players and with GRAMMY-nominated Inscape Chamber Orchestra at venues such as the Smithsonian American History Museum and National Gallery of Art. Also passionate about new music, Laura has workshopped student compositions for wind quintet and solo horn at Ithaca College and the University of Wyoming.
She received her B.M. in Horn Performance from Northwestern University, her M.M. from the University of Maryland, as well as Masters Degree in Library Science from Simmons University.
Kofi Poku
Member
Kofi Poku is an award-winning photographer, passionate about jazz and Big Band music. His photography is his art. A native of Ghana, Africa, he currently resides in Worcester, MA. When not traveling the globe taking photographs of the finest jazz artists, Kofi is working behind the scenes to ensure that jazz and Big Band music is heard by everyone who meets him. Several GRAMMY-winning and nominated artists count Kofi as a close friend, and his photographs have appeared as album covers, magazine articles, international advertisements, and more. His recent exhibit, Jazz Now, premiered in June 2024, showcasing his celebrated photographic art.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Dick Robinson
Dick Robinson, in addition to being a radio and TV personality, is President of Robinson Media, which has owned New England radio stations and Robinson Media Satellite Division. Dick is Founder and former Chairman of Connecticut School of Broadcasting, the nation’s oldest and largest group of communication schools, with 13 locations. Dick also hosts “Dick Robinson’s American Standards by the Sea,” an internationally syndicated two-hour radio show as well as the Founder and President of ‘The Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook’.
Monk Rowe
Monk Rowe is the Joe Williams Director of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive, a position he has held since its inception in 1995. The archive holds a collection of 300+ videotaped interviews with jazz musicians, arrangers, writers and critics. The collection generally focuses on artists associated with mainstream jazz and the swing era. Members of bands led by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and the Dorsey brothers are well represented. The archive web site, www.hamilton.edu/jazzarchive, has information regarding access to this historical resource. Monk is an accomplished saxophonist, pianist and composer. His jazz ensemble charts have been performed by ensembles at Syracuse University, Ithaca College and several N.Y. State SUNY schools. Monk’s 1999 CD “Jazz Life” featured big band artists Bill Watrous, Dennis Mackerel and the late Jerome Richardson. His website, www.monkrowe.com, includes access to his blog “Jazz Backstory – Adventures in the Jazz Archive” www.jazzbackstory.blogspot.com
Nat Hentoff
Hentoff was a columnist and staff writer with The Village Voice for 51 years, from 1957 until 2008. A jazz expert, Hentoff writes on music for The Wall Street Journal and Jazz Times. He has earned numerous awards and is a widely acknowledged defender of civil liberties. In 1980, he was awarded an American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award for his coverage of the law and criminal justice in his columns. In 1983, the American Library Association awarded him the Imroth Award for Intellectual Freedom. In 1995, he received the National Press Foundation Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism, and in 1999, he was a Pulitzer finalist for commentary. Hentoff passed in January 2017, but we are honored to have had him involved in the ABBPS.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703481004574646374181099200
Chris Calloway Brooks
Grandson of Cab Calloway;
leader of the Cab Calloway Orchestra
Christy Monroe Smith
Daughter of Vaughn Monroe
Joseph Rubin
President and Founder,
American Musical Productions
Leader, Ted Lewis Orchestra