Just how old do you have to be to have big band music as a primary influence? Let's take a look... The last big band music that made any impact on our charts (apart from the odd novelty hit) would have been in the 50's. To actually be old enough to go out and listen to it much (and enjoy dancing with the ladies!) you would have had to be in your early twenties, probably. So...

Born in the 30's, maybe 40's. How old does that make them now? 70's to 80's.

I'm just not sure that steering a buying decision about a musical instrument by how well it plays music that 70 and 80+ year old people like is that smart a decision..!

TBH, even the fixation with the Shadows type guitar sounds is for the elderly, primarily. If you are in your 40's and 50's, what generation of music did you grow up with (and what your general audience listened to when THEY were growing up)? I would probably be correct in saying, for this forum, the seventies. Not even a TRACE of bigband then! Maybe some sixties, but I bet it was more rock and roll, and the Beatles, than it was with Ray Conniff!

If Yamaha continue to promote high end arrangers as toys for the elderly, how long is it going to be before they lose ALL relevance for the young? TBH, already have, IMO.

Now, don't get me wrong... I think that there's much about the TOTL Yamaha thoat could do superb modern music, or even music from the 70's and 80's. I can only imagine some EWF or BST, Chicago etc., using those ensemble horns... Fantastic! But what do we get, from a YOUNG performer at that? Take the A Train? What?!

All I can do is point out what happened to the 'home organ'... gradually, they became more and more expensive, and less and less relevant to young players, and now they are as dead as the dodo. I see the exact same path being taken by Yamaha. Sure, short term, you might keep going. But those 70 and 80 year old buyers won't be above ground that long...

Time for the arranger industry to cut them loose, and go after the generation that will see them through the next 30 years or more. And you aren't going to bring them out in droves playing that old folk's home stuff!