"Be Good"

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Be Good is a contrafact on the Kurt Weill tune Stay Well, from the show Lost in the Stars.

In this arrangement, the introduction, transition, and outro surround and separate the contrafact melody and the original melody.

If the tune is used, I would of course eliminate the original melody (beautiful though it is).

REVISION: 10 JANUARY 2010. The first version, in Eb, was for trumpet and tenor. I've revised it for trumpet and alto and put it in G. Another version is in progress adding trombone and guitar.


AUDIO FILE - Eb



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"Pavanne for Pátzcuaro"

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Pavanne for Pátzcuaro is a new title for an old sketch that's been kicking around in my trunk since 1965.

Pátzcuaro is a mountain town 200 miles northwest of Mexico City where my wife Ann and I are going to spend some time in 2010.

The orchestration is in "organ" chords. The form is irregular: 27 bars. On the head the bass plays arco.

There are two Audio files, one before the Lead Sheet and one after, with two different textures. I prefer number 2.


AUDIO FILE 1



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"Much Too Much" for C and Bb Instruments

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"It's warm inside"

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"Nova Express"

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Jeez, I wrote this way back when, after reading William Boroughs's book Nova Express.

It was interesting to me to hear it orchestrated. The voicings are a little awkward, but we can fix that in the mix ...


Audio File



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"Philosophy"

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Last year (2008) when Phil Kelly was ill, a few of us wrote tunes in his honor and posted them on AAJ.

Philosophy (get it?) is my ballad dedicated to Phil.

It's kind of Rachmaninoffy.

The MP3 has a couple of strange dropouts, which I attribute to a bug in Finale 2010 in exporting the file as audio.


Audio File



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"Angel Puss"

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"Tenor Sadness"

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"Timna"

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"free, free, free"

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"Allusion"

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The Genesis

I took the 12 letters "AAJORCHESTRA" and mapped them out as below:

A B C D E F G
H I J K L M N
O P Q R S T U
V W X Y Z

therefore

A = A
A = A
J = C
O = A
R = D
C = C
H = A
E = E
S = E
T = F
R = D
A = A

Giving each note four beats, then, yields this 12-bar bass line:

| A | A | C | A |
| D | C | A | E |

| E | F | D | A |

Using the first 8 bars as the verse looked pretty cool to me. The C in bar three implies that the A chord ought to be minor, and the fact that it goes to the sub-dominant on bar 5 and the dominant on bar 8 made it look like it was do-able.

The C chord in bar 3 proved problematic, so I just squeezed in a little C bass note at the end of bar 2 on beat 4, and then left the four bars of the entire first line as an Am.

Going to the IV chord on bar 5 was a no brainer (obviously Dm) and in bar 6, I followed that with another Dm chord but this time with a C root (as dictated by the original bass line).

As regards bar 7, it seemed that a line that begins with a D and a C then ends on A pretty much implies that a B bass note would work well in there just before the A (and it does!!).

So the first eight evolved into

| Am | Am | Am | Am |
| Dm | Dm/C | Bm7b5 Bm7b5/A | E7#9 E7#5 |

The last four measures (the last "STRA") gave me a little run for my money.

Not being able to reconcile ending the verse on an E chord and beginning the bridge on an E, I decided that since I had two "different" kinds of E chords in measure 8, that I could whittle those last four bars down to three: | F | D | A | (Food and Drug Administration).

I was originally thinking of | F | Dm | A | A | for the first four bars of the bridge, but then decided on
| F/G Dm | F/G Dm | A | A | (just 'cause it's so darn purdy).


While the first eight turned out to be just a simple i-iv-iiĝ-V7 formula, the bridge just knocks me out with its unexpected yet majestic textures.


Currently this file contains:

· Conductor's Score (as piano arrangment) [4 pgs]

· Lead Sheet [1 pg]

· Trumpet part [2 pgs]

· Alto Sax part [2 pgs]

· Tenor Sax part [2 pgs]

· Trombone part [2 pgs]

· Electric Guitar part (tab & changes) [2 pgs]

· Lyrics [1 pg]

· Suggested Arrangement [2 pgs]

· Score with the individual instrument lines all in Concert Key [8 pgs]

· Electric Bass part [1 pg]

· Electric Piano part (RH w/ changes) [1 pg]



Below is the Conductor's Score written out as a Piano Arrangement (4 pages)



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"Varick Street"

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Varick Street is a salsa tune.

The sound file is scored for one trumpet and one tenor. Would be be fleshed out for full band.


Audio File



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"South of L.A."

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Salsa tune. This is another that I submitted last year.

It's scored for trumpets unison with trombone an octave below, and three saxes in harmony.

The melody is very simple, pretty much chord-based, with, like most of my tunes, lots of changes.


Audio File



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"Aisle of White"

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Aisle of White is a straight-ahead swing tune.

The arrangement here is basic. If we use it, I expect to make changes and add piano and guitar and any other instruments we acquire. Right now it's for:
Two trumpets
Three saxes
Bass
Drums

About the title: A good while back my singer friend Lois Britten (AKA Britten Reid) married John White. John is the great-grand-nephew of the architect Stanford White (the Washington Square arch, etc.). This tune was their wedding present from me. The title is an obvious pun on weddings, John's name, and, as Lois's name is "Britten," the British Isle of Wight (see the Beatles' When I'm Sixty-Four). Lois and John divorced a long time ago, but I didn't write a song for that.

Below are a sound file and a lead sheet. The lead sheet is two pages long and differs slightly from the sound file. The latter is my latest thinking on the arrangement.


Audio File



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"Twenty-Four"

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Latin tune. Lead sheet and orchestrated mp3.

This is a concession to chord-scale devotees. It's meant to be soloed emphasizing the chords.

It has no key center. It cycles through the major 7's and dominant 7's of all twelve keys. Thus, 24 chords in 24 measures. Hence the title.

The melody contains a lot of flat 5's, which mostly resolve. It's consonant until near the end, when it departs more from the chord tones.

The lead sheet differs slightly from the arrangement. Alto, tenor, and trombone play the lead in unison, the alto an octave above the others. Three trumpets provide a counter-melody. The rhythm section has guitar but no piano.


"Twenty-Four" mp3 File



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"Box Camera"

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This is a happy little shuffle with clichéd bebop changes. The camera shutter "snaps" at intervals.

Audio file and lead sheet. The arrangement is for unison trumpets and two sax/trombone voices.


Audio File



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"May I Have This Dance?"

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Ballad. I submitted this last year but we had limited slots available.

The arrangement still has vibes on it but that part can be played on piano.

You get an audio file and, for now, a lead sheet.


Audio File



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"Quiescent"

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"Jaywalkin'"

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It's a standard AABA 32-bar tune, uptempo swing. Solos are open, following the form and changes you see on the lead sheet. There is a horn background on the bridge, which will be on cue during performance. Orchestrated for three trumpets, one alto sax, one trombone and one tenor sax.



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"Well Now You Know" Concert and Bb

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I came across this one today. It's the third "movement" of a piece I wrote about four years ago. I think it's got potential to be a cool large-group big-band vehicle.
Jerry wanted to see it in lead sheet format, so here it is. It's basically just a few variations on a little theme. The form is challenging.



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"Rudy Was Just Here"

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I'm going to take Jerry's suggestion about submitting several tunes and letting the members of the band vote on which one they like best.
This one I can hear as a large-group-big-band thing. I think it would need a little more section stuff in there, solis or whatever they're called, to beef it up some, like a cool ensemble thing between solos, something like that.
The concert line would be the trumpets and the piano line would be the saxes. I'll leave all that up to whoever arranges it.



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"Flag"

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