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NON-Standard tunes to arrange for big band?


sgcim

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He seemed to write on the "Hey I'm a hip cat lookin' for a snooty little cutie" level in general, but "Daddy" was a swinging tune we used to do.

He co-wrote this for Julie London, which seems more imaginative:

I think he must have been responsible for the cringe-worthy lyrics to Hefti's "Girl Talk"!

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7 hours ago, JSngry said:

Well, I would never suggest that anybody have this record, but in keeping with your initial theme (at least somewhat)...

 

Kenton was always obsessed with being the hippest of the hip. Then he wound up with Graettinger, and he gradually realized there was a limit to hipness, when the records stopped selling, and the concert halls started emptying.

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  • 11 months later...

Just finished the two hippest songs from Traffic's Barleycorn album as a medley. Winwood uses some compositional/harmonic ideas in the climax of Freedom Rider that are worthy of Gene Puerling.

It was supposed to be a Winwood solo album, but he called in Capaldi and Wood to help out, so they called it Traffic. Wood does some great things on the flute (they even double track the middle of his solo), but his tenor playing is out to lunch, as usual.

Winwood is smoking on the bass (which was tuned down to Eb!) and Capaldi is right there with him.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Turned to Carole King. Was tempted to do "Snow Queen", but BS&T covered that a long time ago. CK did a swinging version of it when she was in a band called The City.

Jim Gordon was a great jazz drummer; he really grooves on it. He even made his own LP back in 1969 when they were calling him 'Jimmy' Gordon.."Hog Fat"

 

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sg, I don't know who your audience is.  Are they normal people, most comfortable with those songs they are familiar with?

I ask because in my view Carole King's success has meant that so many of her songs have been beaten to death.

30 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Turned to Carole King. Was tempted to do "Snow Queen", but BS&T covered that a long time ago. CK did a swinging version of it when she was in a band called The City.

 

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On 6/21/2022 at 9:22 PM, GA Russell said:

sg, I don't know who your audience is.  Are they normal people, most comfortable with those songs they are familiar with?

I ask because in my view Carole King's success has meant that so many of her songs have been beaten to death.

 

One would think so, but I mentioned this song to  my two older Baby Boomer sisters yesterday on the tenth anniversary of our mother's death, and neither of them ever heard of it, and they were huge CK fans.

For this big band project, I only chose songs that I loved, songs that were not played to death,, or that I had something very distinct to say in them, and had an architecture that enabled jazz musicians to blow on them. This meant in some cases I had to add a tempo change, a meter change, a harmonic change, a groove change or a completely new section that would fit in with the song that would enable said blowing to take place.

During the course of the pandemic, I've now written 42 jazz big band arrangements that fit these criteria. Nine of them are originals, and the rest are songs written by musicians as diverse as:

The Association

George Russell

King Crimson

David raksin

John Williams

Cal Massey

Nick Drake

 

Alex North

Tommy Wolfe

If

An obscure 60s rock band

Traffic

Nilsson

Another 60s rock band

The rest of them are standards that I have added something interesting to i.e. I added part of a Howard Hanson symphony to one song!

My audience is whoever digs jazz and good tunes by the aforementioned artists. I played some of them at a concert with my quartet that I received a 5K grant for from NYC, and the audience (of normal people as far as I could tell) enthusiastically applauded after each tune.

I've also had some of them played by the two big bands I play with, and had a good reaction from all but one trumpet player, who said, "Can we play something with a melody?". and one bratty sax player who completely messed up his solo on the same tune, and said. "It's too dissonant".

It should be pointed out that of the eight rock bands' tunes only two of them have rock beats, and they were all written by someone that had some serious jazz background.

Edited by sgcim
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You know The Association also did "Snow Queen", right?

https://youtu.be/GLFgOnX7kpo

The BS&T version wasn't a hit at all, coming as it did on their first post- David Clayton-Thomas album. The album resulted in a resounding yawn from the popular record-buying public, and this song was the last cut on Side 2, part of a medley that easy-led into a mellow Rhodes y tremelo version of "Maiden Voyage".

Don't ask me how I know all this, youthful folly and foolish investments, all that. Just suffice it to say that if you find anybody who knows this song, hey. And if they do know the BS&T version, ask them if the the worse that band's records got, the sticker of Chicago they got. 

 

 

 

Hey, do you know these two?

https://youtu.be/oxh2cGs7jok

https://youtu.be/gjp5-scAtYA

that second one, I'd like a bit slower, but, you know, they didn't ask me what did I think... :g

 

 

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That's probably Charles Stepney's arr. of that old gospel tune. Beautiful changes. He gets to play that wild synth solo on the first one!

We should've done that gospel tune back when I was teaching, but I didn't know it. We played some of their other stuff, and the kids played the schist out of it. One of the bass players (they all played bass and drums) formed a EW&F Tribute band called Hearts Afire. Great stuff, thanks!

The drummer in the Association Ted Beuchel plays great on Snow Queen!!!!   There are a bunch of different versions. Jim Gordon really lays it down on the version by The City, Carole King's first band. The rest of the album sucks. Roger Nichols does a muzak version of it, and a few other bands do mediocre versions of it. I like The Association's and The City's versions, but BS&T do more than I could do with it.When they lost that psycho DCT, that was the end of the hits.

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