Celebrating their 17th year of existence, Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band was born out of ex- Rosie-O’Grady and Disney musicians when the staff musician roles in both places started to erode. The group started essentially as a “kicks” band, collecting and playing the arrangements of Matty Matlock and Billy Maxted. The band went to a few jazz festivals and soon found that there was a real market for the “little big band” type of sound. That was 17 years and 12 recordings ago.

Going to Classic Jazz Band set is like going to a symposium on the history of jazz. You are apt to hear anything from Jelly Roll Morton to Count Basie and all the stops in between. The band uses the 5 horn front line typical of such bands as Matty Matlock, Billy Maxted, Red Nichols, and the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.

Early in the career of Bill’s band, they were able to acquire a major portion of Matty Matlock’s Paducah Patrol library, thanks to Matty’s son, Buddy. All of Matty's charts were essentially written for 10 musicians, but some were more easily adaptable to the Classic band’s 8. Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band has performed and recorded some of the arrangements with the full 10 men by adding the required baritone saxophone and guitar. 2007 marks the 100th birth anniversary of Mr. Matlock and several tribute concerts are planned using the full 10 member ensemble.

Over the years the Classic Jazz Band has added quite an eclectic collection of written and improvised jazz to their library. The noted pianist and arranger , Billy Maxted heard of the band’s desire to tour with a classic library and contributed quite a few of his great charts. Bob Haggart wrote a few, writer, performer, legend Joe DeWeese, did a fair amount of writing and so did Dave Wolpe, Scott Whitfield, John Bambridge, Terry Waddell, Dave Mackenzie as did our own John Allred and Bob Pickwood.

Bill Allred’s Classic Jazz Band has appeared at jazz festivals in Sacramento, Palm Springs and Mammoth Lakes, California; Davenport Iowa’s Bix Festival; Madison, Lacrosse and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Jazz Café at the Smithsonian; John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Sun Valley, Idaho, and at theatres and jazz clubs all over the country. Their overseas trips have taken them to Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, England, Scotland and South America. They performed a benefit for the World Food Program at the Jazz Club Alpheus in Rome, Italy. They have also been the featured band on several Crystal (Jazzdagen) cruises.