The Boston Brass Analysis

If you did not make it out to see The Jazz Ensemble on Tuesday, Apr. 19th, then you really missed out on a great evening of music. Family, friends, and jazz lovers nearly filled the Anne R. Belk Theater to watch and listen to the performance directed by Dr. Will Campbell, with special guest Derrick Gardner. Gardner is a highly accomplished jazz trumpet player, who has traveled the world playing jazz music.The Ensemble member are; Bryce Harris, Jonathan Carroll, Cody Belton, Garrett Brown and Bryan Patterson on the saxophone, Richard Hall, Casey Blackwelder, Wesley Taylor, Liam McMahon and Cameron Francis on the trumpet, Nathan Ricer, Patrick Foray, Virginia Crooks and Kyle Barnhardt on the trombone, Dallas Holder on the piano, Brian Gilbert on the guitar, and Colin Ray and Eric Chang on the drums. The Ensemble played seven songs, and four of those were played with Gardner. The songs were performed in this order “A Pair of Aces,” “You Must Believe in Spring,” “Count Me In,” “Big Dipper,” “Footprints,” “Just a Touch” and “Lil’ Fawdy.” All of the songs were performed exceptionally well, out of the seven these two were my favorite.

Against the lush green field of the White River State Park, stood the impressive stage. The show began with a riveting American fanfare, encompassing the brass section. Undoubtedly the trumpets took center stage here. The trills of these brass instruments painted this piece vividly. Accompanying the trumpets, were the rich deep whispers of the tubas and horns, lightly adorning the melody. This was then followed by the

Vuelta del Fuego is a Mexican based piece designed to captivate the “Zorro” like sound generated in Hollywood films. It combination of this with the “over-the-top romance” feel of Mexican style gives it a certain uniqueness and swagger to each melodic line that is passed throughout. Translated to “(The) Ride of Fire” this piece is long imaginary thrill ride that elevates an ensembles musicianship to the next level. Its fast tempos in combination with difficult melodic lines make this piece enjoyable to listen to, and it is slowly becoming a staple in the brass quintet

To emphasize the feeling of celebration and glory in the first movement, “Gloria In Excelsis Deo,” the orchestra began with a phrase consisting of frequent octave leaps followed by several 16th notes that rarely had any rests in between. With the chorus singing together on the same rhythm of half notes and whole notes, there is a fuller tone and grander sound that filled the whole auditorium. At one point when the orchestra played their ritornello with the chorus, and both groups did the crescendo together, it established the forte climax. Even though the orchestra had difficulty staying in tempo with the conductor for some of the 16th notes, the overall emotion is still

The four songs in their set were either composed or arranged by a member of the group. Due to experience, each member was comfortable on stage and highly skilled; therefore, every solo was near perfection. This combo was unique because it had a trombone player, Henry Panion IV. Throughout this entire concert, every performance had one thing in common. Every player seemed to be having fun and loved to play jazz. This was my first opportunity to go to a jazz concert, and it allowed me to hear a completely new style of music. It opened my eyes to a great genre of American

The usage of synthesizers and the drum-set play a big role in this part of the song. The timbre here is not calm anymore, but fanciful and bright. The rhythm here is upbeat and makes listeners just want to move their feet. Here the usage of synthesizers become the melody with the piano accompanied as the harmony, making this rising action, homophonic. The singer doesn't sing much here, but when he does, this makes this section, become polyphonic, creating two melodies accompanied with one harmony. The singer's voice goes from baritone to tenor, singing in a major key. The dynamics here went from piano to forte and then suddenly to fortissimo, creating leaps in section B. These leaps creates an incomplete Cadence, making listeners want more. The artist sets up an expectation for us, that we as listeners never receive due to this incomplete

East Carolina’s Concert band and Symphonic band performed on Tuesday, February 16, at seven thirty in the evening in Wright Auditorium. Being a duel performance it included over a hundred of my talented East Carolina peers led by outstanding band Directors Dr. Juchniewicz and Dr. Staub. Along with great students and Directors, the show incorporated a beautiful trombone solo performed by a fellow colleague. Although I have never attended a concert where such style of music was being performed, I did enjoy the music being played and most of them sounded as if I heard them before. The professionalism the students portrayed and maintain to the audience was breathtaking and made me honored to be their peers.

Watching Louis Armstrong’s live performance in Berlin during the year 1965 was a pleasure, especially because I am a great fan of his music. Throughout the concert in Berlin, Armstrong and his chamber orchestra played 13 different pieces. With the exception of Jewel Woods’ entrance on vocals for two songs, the makeup of the chamber orchestra did not change throughout the concert. As a result, the cello, clarinet, drums, piano, trombone, and trumpet remained vital parts of each song throughout the concert.

The Dallas Brass is a brass ensemble that performed on September 24th, 2016 at Hart Middle School Auditorium. The members of this group are Luis Araya and Terry Sawchuk who play the (various) trumpets, Juan Berrios who plays the horn, alto horn, and the Flugelhorn, Paul Carlson and Ryan Christianson who play the tuba and trombone respectively, and Andres Crovetti who is the percussion section. Michael Levine is the created the group back in 1983 and was their trombone player before Ryan joined.

This past Thursday, I attended the fourth event in the Presidential concert series. The guest musicians were the wonderful quintet, Saint Louis Brass. They articulately play each note to create a melodious combination with their two trumpets, french horn, trombone, and tuba. During their set, they played a variety of antiqued classics, modern edgy pieces, and smooth jazz.

I attended the Brent Wallarab’s Jazz Ensemble’s performance on March 9th located at the Musical Arts Center at Indiana University Bloomington. It started at 8pm and ended around 9:10pm. Since it is a jazz ensemble, there are lots of instruments involve into the music. As always, piano, bass, guitar and drums serve for the rhythm section, but for some particular songs, vibraphone also serves as the rhythm keeper too. For the woodwind part, there are two alto saxophones, two tenor saxophones, one baritone saxophone and one flute. For the brass part, there are five trumpets and four trombones (one of the trombones is a bass trombone). The atmosphere and the environment were all great because there was a jazz combo’s performance right before the

For my second concert I attended the Central Methodist University Concert Band at Swinney Conservatory of music. The first piece that they played was titled Cyrus the Great, this piece was composed by Karl King and arrangement by Andrew Glover. Cyrus was a band member in King Fort Dodge Municipal Band from Iowa. This piece is a march. This piece contains low brass lines with minor key tonalities with some interesting harmonic changes. The great thing about this piece is that it gives all sections of the band a chance to shine and show their skills. Mr. King published this piece in 1912 after he finished playing in circus bands.

The history of the American brass band is a subtle yet interesting one. Made up of cornets and saxhorns during the 1850’s the all brass band grew to a whole new level of popularity and has become a prominent feature of the brass bands of today. Leading with E flat horns is a prominent extraordinary feature of the early American brass bands. Creating a homogeneous mellow sound by mixing the timbres of these different instruments is one of the most if not the most important characteristics of the early American brass band. The changing times and the creations of different types of sound made many of the instrument in the band become obsolete which also played a huge part in the how much of the literature that can be performed in today’s traditional

The abundance of harmonies never loses the thread to his audience. Furthermore, the opening of the slow movement inspires the imagination and attention of its listeners. All these elements make this piece one of the most successful concertos in the musical history.

Brass bands survived and thrived by incorporating popular music. Contemporary brass bands are no exemption to this either. This chapter examines the particular pieces that have been a part of the repertoire since the turn of the twentieth century. It will concentrate on how the band members used popular music into their own style to fit the band's instrumentation, technique and style.