arrange • compose • conduct
Posts about vocal jazz.
A brand new arrangement from Gene Puerling dropped today, courtesy of Chanticleer! Gene Puerling is a towering presence in the world of jazz and choral arranging. Having passed away just over 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have expected to hear brand new Puerling arrangements today; but a discovery in the […]
How do you help students take a Cabaret/Lounge-style solo to the next level? I watched a student rehearse with a big band yesterday, and offered these three tips. I share them because I find them to be near-universal in applicability.
My newest arrangement is now in print! “Castaways” is a great bossa nova tune that happens to be have been written for the Nick Jr. show The Backyardigans” in 2005. It later became a TikTok meme in 2021. I thought it had fantastic potential for a vocal jazz arrangement – […]
We’re celebrating Bobby McFerrin this weekend! As I’ve written before, the best Bobby McFerrin album is whatever one you’re listening to, and his live concerts are always revelatory. I can literally put myself in my seat at every Bobby concert I’ve ever attended and remember the process of trying to […]
Here’s a story of trying to give back by paying forward. I can’t possibly repay my mentors for the way they shaped me. But I can celebrate them, tell them what they mean to me, try to honor them with my own teaching, and when the opportunity presents itself, I […]
Your creation doesn’t need to have everything. Just make what’s necessary, and then stop. I finished a vocal jazz arrangement today that fits on two pages. Not an a cappella ballad, either! In this case, I was casting around, trying to see what kind of soli, shout chorus, vocalese, or […]
With a vocal jazz quartet, you can’t have someone sick with COVID and still go on. That’s precisely what happened to Shades of Blue a few weeks ago, scuttling our performance at GRCC Jazz Night. We conspired, planned, and got support to put on a Family and Friends Concert after […]
Keep the music you select on the correct side of this axis. My students in Shades of Blue are working on the very difficult a cappella arrangement of “Almost Like Being In Love” by Darmon Meader. It’s aurally demanding, rhythmically tricky, and long! It’s been hard work, but they haven’t […]
Great new vocal harmony recordings are few and far between. We’re lucky to get a handful in any given year. Even rarer for them to come from a brand new group, as opposed to an established leading light such as New York Voices, The Real Group, or Take 6. What […]
I’ve never directed a group with just one on a part. To start: I feel incredibly lucky that I am able to run a class with this few number of singers; I am thrilled to be able to program quartet repertoire for them. We’re exploring great vocal jazz quartets from […]