Possible Clues:

• Some jazz combos
• Groups of eight peformers
• Works with many strings, maybe
• Ate all the parts of them, by the sound of it
• Partly ate them, by the sound of it
• Milkmaids in song and Santa's 5, for example
• Good-sized chamber ensembles
• groups of eight, say singers
• They'll never be one over the eight
• Partly eight, they are