The Big Wolf Band was formed on a dare. I dared myself to do it.
It was a “what have you got to lose?” proposition and the only thing I could lose was money. Musicians should be paid, and having a band of 10 is much more expensive than a trio, which is what I was working with previously. But “what do I have to gain?” was a much more interesting question for me. The answer to that was that I could get 10 of my good friends together, who happen to be among the best players anywhere, and hang out and play music that I have written for them, and have a couple of beers and tell a few stories.
The first band I had was a quintet called “Wolf Soup” , named after a friend of mines’ soup, Sharon Wolf. There were nights when Sharon and I would look in the fridge and say “what can we have for dinner with this stuff?” and she would say “wait a minute” and a few hours later she would have made a delicious soup from the most incongruous ingredients. I wrote a piece about her soup called “Wolf Soup” for Jimmy Giuffre’s quartet and it was recorded in the early 80’s by Jimmy. When I formed my group in the late 80’s I used the same name because the band was a reflection of the soup with the diversity of styles and flavors of the musicians. “Wolf Soup’s ...good for you, based on unexpected choices, a merging of diverse flavors and tastes...from Charlie Haden to Sidney Bechet: that’s the kind of soup we’re in.” said Kevin Whitehead.
The Big Wolf Band is a doubling of the first group because I was hearing a bigger palette. Hopefully you will notice that no two players sound alike. They are all individuals, which of course, is what Jazz is all about. I consider myself very lucky to have a band of individuals who are friends and are willing to give up so much of their valuable time to play my music.

Bon Appetit!
Bob Nieske

[scroll over the photos]

Hey Guys! Quit talking and play!