Ken Schaphorst, a composer, trumpeter, and educator with more than a decade of experience leading big bands, counts on a great lineup of musicians and friends, including a few former students from the New England Conservatory in Boston. Schaphorst’s modern big bands are typically packed with trendy and inventive jazz instrumentalists, and for this new album, entitled How To Say Goodbye, he maintains this feature. Donny McCaslin, Ralph Alessi, Chris Cheek, Uri Caine, Jay Anderson, and Matt Wilson are incredible performers that don’t need any introduction.
Shifty and animated, the title track immediately lets us know about the leader’s art of orchestration. The tune was written for the trumpeter John Carlson who envinces absolute confidence and takes the lead through thoughtful moves.
“Blues for Herb”,
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His influences are blended with Gerry Mulligan’s way, and this combination is fueled by penetrating improvisations of Luis Bonilla on trombone and Brian Landrus on baritone sax.
Schaphorst also takes the opportunity to display his skills on trumpet in “Global Sweet”, a somewhat spiritual chant enveloped in glamour.
The album couldn’t have had a better ending with “Descent”, an impulsively groovy (impeccable foundation by Jay Anderson and Matt Wilson) and vividly swinging piece that shakes us with its emotional robustness. The tune features the irresistible pianist Uri Caine, who becomes lyrical whenever accompanying and effusive when improvising, and also Ralph Alessi whose melodic movements and rhythmic contortions are both impressive and opportune.
Schaphorst’s genius compositions come from the heart and the thankfulness toward the talents who have been sharing music with him is translated into honest tributes and magical reciprocation. Unabated, How To Say Goodbye was beautifully conceived, standing as one of the big band favorite albums of
Young and extremely talented, Adam O’Farrill is a modern jazz trumpeter from Brooklyn, NY, who comes from a lineage of marvelous musicians. His father, the widely known Cuban pianist, composer, and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill, has all the reasons to be proud of a son who, at the age of 21, has collaborated with Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Ambrose Akinmusire, Joe Lovano, and more recently Stephan Crump’s Rhombal. For this recording, Adam had the company of his brother Zack on drums, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown on tenor saxophone, and Walter Stinson on bass. Outlined for quartet, “Stranger Days was pretty much influenced by film and theater.
Edward ‘Duke’ Ellington, a name synonymous with jazz, is considered still to one of the most influential Big Band Swing composers and arrangers. Ellington identified himself as a composer and arranger primarily and then a musician, although he played in bands before becoming an arranger. Ellington’s work and arrangements were instrumental in shaping Big Band Swing and helped to create the longevity of this sound. Ellington learned to lead a band and arrange pieces when he formed his first band, the Washingtonians. Under Ellington’s guidance the band slowly increased in size and popularity and once he began touring he did not stop for almost fifty consecutive years.
The concert was held in an exceedingly luxurious environment which put everyone in the audience in a jubilant mood. The audience would tap their feet along to the catchy rhythm, then would cheer with an electrifying applause after each piece was performed. The band continued to draw the crowd’s attention by having every musician on the stage play their own solo in each song. When Byron Stripling and the Jazz St. Louis Big Band performed the last piece in their set of the night they ended it with every musician on stage shouting “Clark Terry” to end the exquisite
I think that there are two musical ideas in this piece with the pattern AABBAAB. Idea A starts at the beginning and ends at 0:16, then repeats itself until 1:21. Idea B occurs during 1:22-2:17 with a saxophone carrying the melody of the piece. Idea B is started again during 2:18-3:17 but this time, a piano takes the melody. Idea A begins again at 3:18-3:45 and repeats again at 3:46-4:15.
The Santa Fe Evening of Jazz was a great concert featuring the Rhythm and Blues, Jazz Combo, and Big Band from Santa Fe College with special guest Professor Scott Wilson from the University of Florida Jazz Studies. This Evening of Jazz was the ninth one to be held and was superbly done; getting a ticket was quick and simple, finding a seat was as easy, and leaving was not hard. The whole performance was led by Doctor Steven Lee Bingham who also played with all the bands on the alto saxophone along with giving information about each band, song, scholarship players, and on Mr. Wilson and his unique instrument called a E.V.I.. The audience had a pleasant feel, everyone was talking and laughing before and after the performance, they also were
In life, there are few things as organic as jazz music. With its raw sound and scrappy roots, one cannot help but feel life head-on whilst witnessing players produce such a sound right before their eyes. Its origins and arch are a product of the United States’ national culture and identity. Jazz exists not only as a deeply rooted form of art but as a cultural marker, particularly during its commercial peak in the first half of the 20th century. Its impact transcends borders, and it is one of the most beloved musical genres worldwide.
On the day of Sunday April 10th, I went to a jazz ensemble concert at the Trinity University Ruth Taylor Recital Hall. This hall was much larger than the previous performance I attended. My first impression of the group was that they were relaxed and comfortable. For instance, when the drummer winked the drummer gave when the director explained his switch from the trumpet to drums.
That you shouldn’t let your living situations or surroundings determine your outcome. Sonny's Blues shows challenges that troubled the African-American community, and how drugs troubled the young artists and kept them bound like slaves. How those living in Harlem, felt like there was no escape to the poverty that surrounded them. How a young artist was overcoming his demons, with the support of his family and living out his dream. How one has to forgive and not let the past control one’s future, nor let the surroundings of your environment determine where you will go in
It’s a perfect night for a concert, warm, calm, and overall elegant. On Friday, September 11 in the Nightingale Concert Hall, a fabulously performed concert called the Argenta Concert Series, The Fifth Anniversary Season, directed by Dmitri Atapine and Hyeyeon Park, took place. In this performance the following musicians performed; Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio on the violin, Dustin Budish on the viola, and James Winn on the piano. Not only that, there was also a guest appearance by Jonah Kim on the cello. Although not the best turnout, there was still a decent audience.
“Sonny’s Blues” is not just about Sonny's decisions and struggles but also about how they affect the narrator. This story is as much about family and brotherhood and the relationship between these two men as it is about the character of
I didn’t know that choosing this instrument meant that I would find a group of people so similar to me, so in tune with my every quirk. Even if fellow trumpeters don’t understand my Katherine-isms, they certainly—and wholeheartedly—accept them. With an instrument that pierces every melody, one cannot hide mistakes: trumpets are unabashedly themselves. I didn’t know I would be sitting in the back of the ensemble: when you’re far enough away from the conductor, you can just express yourself more. The poor flutes are tightly bound to the conductor’s confines, while trumpets can add their own flourishes—their musical identities—to the
Introduction Roger’s and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music is arguably one of the most well known films that many can admit to watching at least once in their lifetime. People all around the world have found this musical inspiring, as it documents growth and hope amidst the horrors of World War II. This incredibly well written film is based on the story of the Von Trapp family who escaped Austria when the Nazis invaded it during the war. Part of what made this movie so interesting on so many different accounts was the music that accompanied the vivid and exciting scenes. Without music, many could agree that our world would be a sad, quiet, dull and depressing place.
"How To Kill," by Keith Douglas, addresses the idea of how simple it is to kill, and how easy it is to detach yourself from what that kill really means. In the second stanza of his poem , Douglas says, "Now in my dial of glass appears/The soldier who is going to die./He smiles, and moves about in ways/ His mother knows, habits of his." The speaker of the poem watches the person he is about to shoot and recognizes that, once he pulls the trigger, somebody's little baby will be gone forever.
All the three works of group three extend the novelties of group two. “Ecco mormorar” and “S’andasse Amor” adventure the florid writing in them, while “Memtr’io mirava” shares its move to distant harmonic areas. However, there are two traits that are very difficult to define that unite these madrigals; one is an ability to bring to music the syntactic and meaning organization of text and a structural coherence of a rigor which is unknown to Monteverdi’s earlier works. All the listed characteristics and especially the last one, are exemplified in the “Ecco mormorar l’onde” which happens to be Monteverdi’s most famous madrigal of the second madrigal books. The texts of “Ecco mormorar l’onde” is a fourteen-line that illustrates the pastoral dawn, a sort of landscape poetry in which Tasso shined .