On the Move: Jazz at Luther
Jazz Band IConductor(s): Tony Guzmán
(includes shipping and handling)
Format: Audio CD
Recorded: 2003
Discs: 1
Label: Luther College Recordings
Catalog: LCR2003-1
Availability: Usually ships within 2–3 days
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Program Notes
Burnin’ (Blues for Bird) was a tribute to Charlie Parker. Composer Don Menza (b. 1936) is a hard driving tenor saxophonist and a composer of distinction. In 1980 he composed and recorded Burnin’ with his own big-band. Using the standard blues form, Menza combined a bebop melody in the style of Parker in counterpoint with the theme of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Menza brought the spirit of small-group jazz to the big band idiom by writing clever choruses for the saxophone section.
Compadre Pedro Juan is perhaps the most famous Dominican merengue. Luis Alberti (1906–1976) was a prolific creator and re-creator of authentic traditional music of the Dominican Republic. His dance orchestra bridged the gap between folk music and high-class dance halls. In the 1930s “Pedro Juan” was a generic name for a common Dominican character. “Compadre” is term used fondly among friends. The lyrics of Compadre Pedro Juan are an exhortation to dance merenge (the Dominican national dance), played with tambora (a two-headed drum played horizontally on the player’s lap) and g�ira (a cylindrical metal scraper). Rafael Solano, a distinguished Dominican composer, arranger, and bandleader, wrote Compadre Pedro Juan, commissioned by the Luther College Jazz Band I for their 2003 Spring Tour. Maestro Solano used dissonances, and extended and altered chords to enrich the traditional tonic-dominant harmonic structure of merengues. He expanded the customary two-section form by using theme and variation of the main melodic material and contrasting dense with thin textures.
Bob Brookmeyer, composer and arranger born in 1929, became an important figure of the West Coast style after taking up valve trombone in 1952. He composed First Love Song in 1979 for the Mel Lewis Orchestra. Rayburn Wright described this composition as being “at once both extremely simple and extremely complex. The complexity is in the vertical chord structures and in the sophistication of the constant substitute chords. The simplicity is in the song itself and in the form of the arrangement.” In this composition the instrumental colors are disciplined and limited, keeping the focus on the melody line and the rich harmony.
According to Mark Gridley, Duke Ellington (1889–1975) was “the most creative and prolific composer-arranger in jazz history, and he led the most stable and longest-lived big band.” Many critics consider the late 1930s and early 1940s the greatest era for Ellington’s band. Two of our selections come from these years: Ko-Ko and Old King Dooji. Ko-Ko is hailed as one of Ellington’s masterpieces. A free-standing work, it was originally drawn from “Boola,” an unfinished opera in which Ellington planned to “tell the story of his race.” The piece was a culmination of the “jungle style,” developed while performing for exotic dance routines at the Cotton Club in New York. Ko-Ko is an evocative piece about African sounds. It is a twelve-bar minor blues with an introduction and coda built up from a “tom-tom” pattern reinforced by the baritone sax. In Old King Dooji Ellington demonstrated his technique and depth to create a large structure from small components, by means of establishing commentary between sections and by reworking simple ideas.
The Shepherd (Who Looks Over the Night Flock), recorded by Ellington in 1968, is a musical portrait of Reverend John Garcia Gensel, pastor to the jazz community of New York City. He was a spiritual guide to many jazz musicians and to Ellington, who had deep religious convictions. This piece features call and response in the Afro-American church style, with the trumpet being the preacher and the band the congregation.
The sensual Argentinean tango was described by Jorge Luis Borges as “the vertical expression of a horizontal desire.” An embracing-couple dance of sophisticated and suggestive choreography, the tango is also a song and instrumental form. It evolved in the poor barrios and brothels of Buenos Aires at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992), a virtuoso of the bandone�n at young age, created the “tango nuevo.” Piazzolla added classical and jazz influences to the tango elevating it to an art form. La Camorra (Street Fight) is a musical drama. Piazzolla said that, “No matter what the context, the tango must express camorra, which is how the roots of the tango are preserved.” Milonga Loca (Crazy Milonga) was originally composed by Piazzolla for the film “The Exile of Gardel.” The composer used pointillism to outline the melody of this milonga, originally a song sung with guitar in the rural areas of Argentina and Uruguay.
Composer and arranger Fred Sturm captured the essence of Piazzolla’s style in masterful adaptations from tango quintet to jazz band. La Camorra and Milonga Loca are two pieces from Strum’s suite, “Tango Nuevo: Homage A’ Piazzolla. Professor Sturm is also the director of Jazz and Improvisational Music at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Loose Ends defies classification. Rick Lawn blended modern composition techniques with jazz and rock to create a relentless, hard-driving groove, contrasted by ethereal wind writing. The extended solos for electric rock guitar and electric violin alternate with the drummer’s solo along with shorter solos for soprano sax and trumpet. Loose Ends is rich in sonorities. Professor Lawn is the Founding Director of the Jazz Studies Program in the School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin.
Gordon Goodwin is an Emmy-winning composer based in Los Angeles. He composed Mama Llama Samba for trombonist Bill Watrous’ 1997 album “Space Available.” Goodwin’s writing is full of whimsy, with contrasting textures. It is based on a mixture of Latin rhythms (samba and songo). This composition is truly a tour de force for the entire ensemble.
Sister Sadie by Horace Silver has become a jazz standard, like other compositions of his such as Song for my Father, Señor Blues, Nica’s Dream. Silver (b. 1928) combined elements of bebop with a bluesy, gospel-inspired approach, a style labeled “funky” in the mid 1950s. Silver was the first important pioneer of this style also known as “hard bop.” Alf Clausen arranged Sister Sadie for the Ray Charles Big Band. This arrangement features a front line of trumpet and bari sax, extended solo space, and hard swinging soli and ensemble sections.
Why Not? is one of the most celebrated compositions by Dominican pianist Michael Camilo (b. 1954). The Manhattan Transfer won a Grammy Award for their vocal version in 1983. This Latin Jazz piece has a festive Dominican character, with driving rhythm and an intricate melody. Camilo is a prominent figure in international jazz festivals.
—Juan Tony Guzmán
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