The buzz of a good arrangement ('rebranded thread')

[Bilbo]

We all do it, even if we don’t know it, but the art of the arranger is one of the most misunderstood and underrated skills in the field of music. They often don’t get any credit at all; Gil Evans only got arranger’s fees for his work with Miles Davis and those arrangements were astonishing and defined several Davis lps! I am no arranger, I never really get the chance to work with an ensemble long enough to get into this area of work but, as a listener, I get a real thrill out of a lovely arrangement, be that some subtle changes to the harmony in one player’s version of a great jazz standard, a tune played at a much faster or slower tempo than the original (a bossa based ‘Giant Steps’ or a lightening ‘Prelude to a Kiss’), a changed time signature (Steve Swallows 5/5 version of All Blues from the We Three cd is great) or a change in root movement. YOUR bass line can define a piece but you won’t get a composer credit – Wherever I Lay My Hat, Birdland, Fever, Too Shy….

Then there is the choice of instrument. Anyone ever heard Bill Frissel’s Have Little Faith’? Gtr, bs, dr, accordion and clarinet doing everything from Souza marches to Aaron Copeland ballets, from Sonny Rollins bop and Madonna hit singles. Or Bob Curnow’s big band arrangements of Pat Metheny tunes. The decision to double a trombone with a flute (Bob Mintzer’s ‘Mr Fone Bone’), or to introduce a harmonica or French Horn into a big band (Jaco’s Word of Mouth). The specific sound of a flugel horn doubled by a soprano saxophone. Or a double bass doubling a pianist’s left hand. One of the most exciting things I ever saw live was a trio of saxophone, polytonal tambourine and hurdy gurdy. I was only there by accident but WOW!! What about the choice to replace Rodrigo’s Guitar with Miles’ trumpet on Sketches of Spain? Or to add a string arrangement to John Lewis’ ‘Django’ (Wynton Marsalis’ ‘Hot House Flowers’) (strings in jazz? Now there’s a controversy). Albert Mangelsdorff’s Trio of trombone, drums and electric bass? Anything by Pat Metheny – the supreme arranger! Maria Schneider. Michel Camilo in duet with Gregory Hines – yes, the TAP DANCER!!!!

Or the choice of players when the choice is infinite and not circumstantial: Trilok Gurtu with John McLaughlin or Oregon – totally defined the music. Allan Holdsworth and Kenny Wheeler in Bruford’s band? Shouldn’t have worked but, hell, it really did. Add a string quartet to a jazz piano trio (Michel Petrucciani – ‘Marvellous’). Or go it alone: Francois Moutin playing ‘Beyond the Sea’ on solo double bass, or Chris Potter taking ‘Body and Soul’ alone on saxophone. Bobby McFerrin made a choice to go solo and made some astonishing lps with just his own voice and body parts to call upon.

So many of us only ever get to play with guitars drums and maybe keyboards, mediocre instrumentalists, reproducing the arrangements of others, or regurgitating well established clichés for tried and tested (and, consequently, predictable effect. We miss so much. I recommend that people listen to what is going on in the music they enjoy and ask themselves, why that and why then? Then start thinking about your own music and the choices you make in preparing for performance. There is so much more to enjoy in music and so many better ways of moving people than double thumbing.

[mcgraham]

Agreed. You can breathe new life into old and tired songs with some very simple but creative arrangements.

[The Funk]

Agree massively with Bilbo's post.

When we started dropping some covers into our multiple set gigs, I did arrangements of the tunes to suit us, sometimes with subtly different accents in places, sometimes with different instrumentation (eg. a clavinet to play Lenny Kravitz's rhythm guitar part on [i]Always On The Run[/i]). After going through that process of tweaking songs to suit the band I went back and did the same thing to our original compositions.

[fatback]

Learning something about production on computer is a good way to get into this imo. Cubase, Logic or whatever.

You get to play with structures and instrumentation, plus attending to the frequency spectrum in terms of interest, interference and so on.

Hard to get to fool around with those things in a band setting unless you've got a lot of knowledge and authority.

[Bilbo]

In the late 1980s, there was a London based jazz big band called Loose Tubes that recorded three lps of fresh and exciting big band material. The band feaatured the playing and arranging of a lot of future jazz stars: Iain Ballamy, Django Bates, Steve Berry, John Paricelli, Tim Whitehaed, Steve and Julian Arguilees, Tim Whitehead, Ashley Slater (Freakpower) etc etc. One of the writer/arrangers was a trumpet player called Dave Defries. One of his tunes was a piece called 'Hermeto's Giant Breakfast'. The tune is a major tour de force but, from 6.46 onwards, it is particularly stunning. They were a great band live and there are videos out there but there is nothing that has found its way onto Youtube or Spotify by the band so I thought I would post this for people to hear. If anyone knows Dave or anyone else from Loose Tubes who objects, get in touch and I will pull the post but, as there is no way of getting this tune commercially that I am aware of, I thought that, in the interests of the art form and thge reputation of the composer/arranger, I would share this with you. So sit back and get an earful of Loose Tubes' performance of Dave Defries' 'Hermeto's Giant Breakfast'. You'll thank me for it.

[phil625sxc]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1274693' date='Jun 19 2011, 01:35 PM']So sit back and get an earful of Loose Tubes' performance of Dave Defries' 'Hermeto's Giant Breakfast'. You'll thank me for it.[/quote]


fantasic ! thanks for posting this. :-)

[lowdown]

Yep great interesting arrangement.


Garry