{"id":19,"date":"2009-11-25T09:51:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T09:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amarts.ca\/jmblog\/?p=19"},"modified":"2023-04-23T23:06:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T23:06:52","slug":"arranging-up-from-the-skies-for-the-vanguard-jazz-orchestra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/25\/arranging-up-from-the-skies-for-the-vanguard-jazz-orchestra\/","title":{"rendered":"Arranging \u201cUp from the Skies\u201d for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jim McNeely<\/em><\/p>\n

In planning the music for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra\u2019s new CD on the Planet Arts label (100454), I knew that most of the compositions would be my own. But I also wanted to include an arrangement of someone else\u2019s tune, and I decided on Jimi Hendrix\u2019s Up from the Skies <\/em>(subsequently the album\u2019s title). I\u2019d always been a fan of his music, and \u201cSkies\u201d had long appealed to me as a possible subject.<\/p>\n

In arranging an existing song, my initial process has little to do with actually writing notes. I need time to discover the heart and soul of the tune; to fall in love with it. I spent a lot of time listening to Hendrix\u2019s own version, as well as to many of his other recordings. I purposely did not listen to Gil Evans\u2019, or anyone else\u2019s \u201ccover\u201d of the song. I made my own lead sheet, and spent days just playing through the tune, making little scribbles to myself about possibilities regarding form, solos, harmony, and rhythm.<\/p>\n

The original has a heavy jazz influence: drummer Mitch Mitchell plays brushes; the groove is a swing feel; and Hendrix\u2019s own accompaniment tends to be four-to-the-bar rhythm guitar. Moreover, his singing has a very \u201ccool\u201d feeling; while he finally builds to a blues shout at the end, overall the performance has a subdued vibe. So I started to develop my aural image of the arrangement: keep it cool, build it a little here and there, but don\u2019t overdo it!<\/p>\n

Enter the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, because the piece would not exist merely in my head, or on paper; it would come alive through them. Arranging is essentially a process of making innumerable decisions, and many of those decisions would be influenced by my knowledge of the VJO: their ensemble sound; the way they play time; the players\u2019 technical possibilities; and the soloists. I decided that the atmosphere of the arrangement would be best served by Jason Jackson on trombone and Ralph Lalama on tenor saxophone.<\/p>\n

Now I started to play with the tune\u2019s form. Hendrix\u2019s form (Ex. 1) served his original purpose, but I wanted to recast the song on a larger canvas, with the variety of colors the VJO afforded me.<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/p>\n

I devised two slightly different solo forms. The changes retained the essence of the original (Ex. 3),<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

but the harmony has been expanded so that the chords kept moving up or down in minor thirds (Ex. 4).<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

I also felt that the bridge (Ex. 5a) could function as an interlude, between the two solos as well as between the tenor solo and the band tutti<\/em>. I decided to use much bigger voicings here (Ex. 5c), with a lot more chromatic movement than I\u2019d used in the \u201ccool\u201d head chorus (Ex. 5b).<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

As I played with the solo forms, I realized that I wanted to give the background some rhythmic texture. So I devised a scheme for the bridge in which groups of five eighth-notes are superimposed over groups of three (Ex. 6)<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the biggest challenges was presenting the melody of the song. It sounded great when Hendrix sang it, with his characteristic inflection and delivery. But I didn\u2019t think that it would be as effective as a single instrumental line. First, I worked with the rhythm. Since I didn\u2019t have to deliver the lyric, I had some flexibility (see Ex. 7 a & b).<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/p>\n

I was also hearing the melody stated with a lush, cloudy voicing, played by all of the winds. Fl\u00fcgelhorns would add to the \u201cround\u201d quality of the sound. I left the bass trombone out of the beginning ensemble, saving him for doubling bass figures. The seven remaining brass are voiced in a tight diatonic cluster (Ex. 8 a & b ).<\/p>\n

\"Ex<\/a><\/p>\n

The soprano sax doubles the lead Fl\u00fcgel, and the other four saxes double voices 2, 4, 5, and 7 (Ex. 9). When this section is played really soft it sounds wonderful! I used a couple of other traditional techniques for more harmonic motion. Parallel planing of a voicing works especially well in embellishing half-step or whole-step melodic neighbor tones. And half-step approaches to a strong target voicing provide good motion in the inner voices<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

After the solos I wanted the ensemble to say a few things before returning to the \u201cout\u201d head. I went for a \u201cmeltdown\u201d effect, first with the saxes, then with even more of the band. I simply wrote a melody (Ex. 10) with the instruction \u201cDon\u2019t play exact rhythms\u201d. The more players in the group, the more effective is the result.<\/p>\n

\"Ex.<\/a><\/p>\n

The arrangement\u2019s form finally took shape as shown in Example 2. While I didn\u2019t devise this specific plan on \u201cDay One\u201d, neither did it \u201cjust happen\u201d. The form is the result of the myriad of decisions I made throughout the process.<\/p>\n

Remember that arranging is about a lot more than voicings and chord changes; it\u2019s about shaping a song in order to tell a good story. You <\/em>control every single element, including form, color, harmony, rhythm, density and energy. The better and broader your control, the more interesting, nuanced, and powerful the story.<\/p>\n

Back to the writing table\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Jim McNeely\/Woodshed<\/p>\n

Up from the Skies<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim McNeely In planning the music for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra\u2019s new CD on the Planet Arts label (100454), I knew that most of the compositions would be my own. But I also wanted to include an arrangement of someone else\u2019s tune, and I decided on Jimi Hendrix\u2019s Up from the Skies (subsequently the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jim-mcneely.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}