It's possibly worth emphasising briefly that big bands and large ensembles (with highlighted soloists) more or less defined the swing era and that this tendency declined as jazz tended to favour small groupings. So jazz being orchestrated with intricate arrangements in the era of Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie (and Benny Goodman, Ellington and others) isn't very unusual or remarkable. I didn't really think of anything along those lines, since your criteria would apply too generally. I presumed you mostly meant things from later generations.snailed wrote: smaller groups especially, but i'm ok with either. i haven't really done a good thorough look at duke's stuff, so your post got me on that, which i'm grateful for.
i'm especially interested in atypical arrangements that have been pre-planned / written out / whatever using smaller groups. but also definitely interested in the larger and more traditionally orchestrated stuff. the really huge stuff doesn't do it as much on a personal level for me, but i'm definitely still interested in checking out the best examples of it.
I don't think there's a huge musical distinction to be drawn between smaller ensembles and orchestras when the parts are arranged as a coherent unit: a well arranged small or moderately sized group can easily provide an "orchestral" effect, and a badly scored full orchestra can obviously sound as thin as shit.
Maarten Altena's early 80s ensemble stuff (like Quick Step) on his own label Claxon can be pretty good. Much better than his later stuff on Hat, I think.
