mattlangley.com

2/3/11 – Finally back after the holiday hiatus! Nice playing and hearing, talking, jamming. Here’s Hank playing “This I Dig of You”. Katie requested “Footprints” so I’ll bring that in next week along with a couple others as yet undetermined. Let me know if you have any other ideas, questions, thoughts, concerns!

11-10-10 Great rehearsal. Thanks for changing it up on my account. Here’s the rundown for the show on friday. Show up around 6 please.

Unit 7:
Solos from Anna, Joe, Dick
play the head out from the BRIDGE with the pickups
Fill in the second tag (Roger’s got the first one – everyone joins for the others)
No horns on the final chord (The guitars have the Jimi Hendrix chord alone at the end)

short, silent pause…then, magically…

Snow Crystals interlude:
During the uproarious applause for Unit 7…cue the snow machine and start Crystallizing (sounds…some in D minor if your snowman is in that key)
Katie will start the groove…CONTINUE LOBBING SNOW SOUNDS AT PASSING CARS (don’t stop when the drums come in)….
When Dave comes in, count 4 bars and come in with your parts

Snow Crystal Solos:
Roger, Dan
Please remember dynamics on this one

Perdido:
Head in: Shelley on Flute & Roger on the first two A’s
Anna and Dick get the Bridge and last A of the head with Shelley and Roger Noodling brilliantly melodic and swinging lines over the last A

Solos: Shelley (choose your weapon wisely), Pike
FULL SHOUT CHORUS (2 Full choruses) after Pike’s Solo.
FYI Shelley…the band was clocked at 160BPM last night on this tune. You might want to run through that shout chorus a couple times at that tempo!
then…Dave fills the last 2 measures of the shout and he and Katie Trade 4′s for the entire form
Head out same as in (Shelley/ Roger – A,A – Anna/Dick – B,A with Shelley & Roger Comping) End last note of melody SHORT for Dan’s Count Basie piano ending.

11-4-10 Arrangements are pretty well set for the Concert of Thanksgiving on 11/12. The order will be Unit 7 (solos from Anna, Joe, Dick), Snow Crystals (solos from Roger and Dan) and Perdido (solos from Shelley, Pike and fours between Katie and Dave…possibly a Katie solo…still in the works). Next week rehearsal is on wednesday 11/10 and will be at my house. I emailed everyone my address and phone number. If you didn’t receive the info, use the contact form on this site to reach me and I’ll get back to you with directions,etc. We’re meeting at 7PM. ‘Til then…here’s another take on Perdido…

10-8-10 No new charts last night. We tried Solar a few times to get the backgrounds tightened up. Then onto Dan’s tune which sounded great. Dan is working on an arrangement of his tune so expect your part to change a little bit…all for the best I’m sure! Then we all took a shot at Unit Seven which sounds like a good choice for the Concert of Thanksgiving coming up on 11/12. That’s all for now. Here are a few notes from Chicago’s Exploding Star Orchestra to keep you inspired…

9-30-10 Thanks for putting up with the experimentation tonight. You read some difficult tunes! I think we’ll keep “If I Should Lose You” but I’ll look for some better changes and I’ll write an arrangement of it. There are a ton of great versions of the tune one of my favorites being Hank Mobley’s on Soul Station:

We probably won’t play Vine again unless someone requests it but, just so you get something out of it, here’s some info on Chris Cheek and here’s a link to check out some of his music on ilike

9-24-10 Great class last night. Some excellent playing and Dan’s new tune sounded great. Here are some versions of “Unit Seven” to check out:
Wes Montgomery and Wynton Kelley at the Half Note.

And here’s a vid of Blood Sweat and Tears (a.k.a. a bunch of studio musicians) doing Unit Seven. I threw this up here because the instrumentation is similar to ours. I think we gotta throw in that shout line for the drum solo!

Welcome PMAC Adult Jazzers. Here’s a list of tunes I’m working on for this semester:

Solar – Miles Davis
This is a classic Miles blowing tune that has been recorded by many jazz artists. The tune has a 12 bar form and passes through 4 key centers in that small amount of time. It’s a lot of fun to play on!

Perdido – Juan Tizol, Performed by Duke Ellington
Another classic. There are tons of recordings and arrangements of this tune as well. One of my favorites is the one by Don Byron with Bill Frisell, Drew Gress and Jack Dejohnette. Have a listen to it here: Perdido (Pegao). I’ll bring in the shout lines and we’ll do as much of them as we can without getting in the way of everyone getting a chance to improvise on the tune!
Here’s a YouTube video of the Ellington Orchestra performing Perdido.