Some great playing from Andy Crowley and Dan Newell. Superb intonation, musicality and articulation. You want to hear how double and triple-tonguing should sound, take a listen to these guys play! Amazing control of the trumpet.
This version of The 4 Seasons (arranged by Nick Ingman) reminded me a little of the Canadian Brass version of Vivaldi’s famous piece.
I think I like it better with just 2 trumpets and strings.
Some incredibly precise and musical playing! The intonation of that last note in the vid is pretty sweet. Check it out.
Trumpeters Andy Crowley & Dan Newell Play Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons
I loved Earth, Wind, & Fire so much in the 80s, and I still do. Tight horn lines (the best in the business in my opinion), deep funk, and great musicianship all around.
English: Wynton Marsalis at the Oskar Schindler Performing Arts Center (OSPAC) Seventh Annual Jazz Festival in West Orange, NJ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The nerves are a problem on trumpet, because when you mess up everyone can hear it. Just remember most people are too polite to say anything about it. That should calm your nerves.
I’ve long been a user and lover-hater of Band In a Box. It’s always been a clunky, overly-complicated, expensive piece of software, but I bought it and used it and recommended it to others despite its clunkiness because there wasn’t anything better available. Now there is. Orders of magnitude better. It’s called iReal Book.
The iReal Book app gives you access to thousands of jazz and other chord charts, and it will play a decent-sounding MIDI rhythm section in several styles. You can enter your own tunes, and, best of all, you can share them with other users. The forum contains thousands of tunes, and with a simple click on an html link, the app automatically installs it to your iReal Book. Within 5 minutes I had nearly 1,500 songs on my device, and over 300 of them were Gypsy Jazz, the genre I play most.
Just before a gig on Saturday I needed a couple lead sheets, and sent them from the app to myself as a PDF and printed ‘em up, no sweat. The printouts are great and structured well. Be sure to check for accuracy, though. One tune, Them There Eyes was missing a line, which is a problem in the middle of a gig. We learned that the hard way.
The app is around $10, and with some of the in-app purchases (I bought the Gypsy Jazz accompaniment and the guitar chords function), you can push the price up to around $20, but that’s still a great deal for the functionality and usability of the app. I’m not entirely happy with the guitar chord fingering choices for the app, and have not yet discovered whether those can be tweaked, but I sure hope they can. If so, this is a grand-slam home run app. It’s a minor quibble, no pun intended. When you consider that Band in a Box goes for around $100, and even more if you want realistic sound quality, the iRealBook app is a steal.
This is one of the best practice tools I’ve come across in many years. Absolutely brilliant! If you need to practice with a rhythm section in just about any style (jazz, bluegrass, pop, rock, etc.), you’ve got to get this app. It’s available for both iOS, MacOS, and Android devices). Here’s a comprehensive video walkthrough of most of its features:
There’s a lot to like about this video of classical trumpeter Alison Balsom promoting her new(ish) 2010 album of Italian Concertos. First is the way she’s totally into the music, moving to the pulse and absorbed in the sound. When they practice, great musicians move to the pulse (some dance, some clap, sometimes all you gotta do is nod ya head). Then take a look at how relaxed Balsom is as she plays. With one foot up (and Uggs on), it’s not “correct” posture, but what’s more important is to be relaxed and breathing well.
Then she talks about the concertos on the album, all of which were written for the violin or the oboe. Again, lots of great players practice things (and perform them) that weren’t originally for their instrument. Rex Martin related advice to me he got from Arnold Jacobs, who said there isn’t a lot of beautiful music written for the tuba (they’re both superb tuba players if you’re unfamiliar with them). And so, Rex said he often plays pieces/etudes/melodies written for the trumpet, and sometimes, for a good workout, he plays them in the trumpet range!
And then there’s a shot of Ms. Balsom talking through the music with some colleagues (great music doesn’t just spring out fully formed, it takes thought, collaboration and attention to detail); and then Balsom talking about how she loves a challenge, another trait masters in any field have: they love to tackle challenges that push them to greater achievement.
Anyway, like I said, there’s a lot to love about this video (like that rotary valve piccolo trumpet), so I’m going to just shut up and let you watch it.
Lee Morgan has such personality and feeling in his playing. He’s one of my all-time favorite trumpeters. Man! Could that guy play. Bob Cranshaw played bass with Lee Morgan and talks about Lee in this interview, interspersed with great footage of Lee Morgan playing tunes like Doodlin’, Night in Tunisia, and Sidewinder. Cranshaw talks about the Sidewinder sessions.
Alas, we lost Lee Morgan tragically in the early hours of February 19, 1972, at Slug’s Saloon, a jazz club in New York City’s East Village where his band was performing. Following an altercation between sets, Morgan’s common-law wife Helen More (a.k.a. Morgan), shot him. The injuries were not immediately fatal, but the ambulance service was reluctant to go into the neighborhood where the club was located. They took so long to get there that Morgan bled to death. He was 33 years old.
You’ve GOT to check out his music. My favorites are his years with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, but that’s a tough call. It’s all great. Probably my favorite tune that Lee Morgan wrote is the beautiful Ceora. But if I’m in a more “up” mood, the tune Bob Cranshaw talks about (written by Lee Morgan in about 20 minutes in the bathroom), is also my favorite, Sidewinder.
I love this man’s music. And last February, after hearing a smoking middle school septet (yes, I wrote that correctly) do a superb version of Duke’s Black and Tan Fantasy, I think it’s safe to say Duke’s music will be a long-lasting legacy.
Here’s a vid, a short bio on the man. The gem comes around 2:40. “Every musician in the world has some limitation. There is no musician in the world who has no limitation…. But, the wise players are those who play what they can master.”
He also speaks about how and why he writes, and what circumstances help him write. Probably my favorite Duke tune is East St. Louis Toodle-oo. Something about Bubber Miley/Cootie Williams’s plunger work is just great!
If you’re unfamiliar with Duke, check out the Ken Burns collection. A good selection. Here’s a 1927 recording of East St. Louis Toodle-oo with Bubber Miley on trumpet. And here’s an MP3 of the tune you can buy.
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Duke was famous for writing tunes for specific performers. Here’s the tune he wrote for trumpeter Cootie Williams.
Here’s another Duke Ellington trumpeter,
Cootie Williams: Concerto for Cootie
I’ve long been a user and lover-hater of Band In a Box. It’s always been a clunky, overly-complicated, expensive piece of software, but I bought it and used it and recommended it to others despite its clunkiness because there wasn’t anything better available. Now there is. Orders of magnitude better. It’s called
