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Digital Downloads
When a purchase is made through the store, a download will be made available to the buyer via a private link sent to the email address provided during the checkout process. Only one download can be made before the link expires. Download links will include all applicable parts and the score in PDF format.
Refunds
No refunds are made after the file is downloaded.
Customizations
All charts are sold “as is.” If changes need to be made, those need to be communicated via the Custom Work form before purchase. Examples include: adjusting the vocal key, reorchestrating out woodwind doubles, writing out improvised solos from the original recording, adding or removing choruses for solos, rewriting an ending based on another recorded version of the tune, etc. These can all be done, but you need to go through the Custom Work form first. A separate invoice will be sent out for that once the cost is worked out. In some situations, if you already bought and downloaded the tune before expressing a need for changes, the cost of the purchase may be deducted from the custom quote.
Terminology
My standard big band instrumentation is two alto saxes, two tenor saxes, one bari sax, four trumpets, four trombones, guitar, piano, bass, and drums.
Often in sax doubling situations, the bari sax will play alto, and alto 2 will play clarinet. Other doubles can pop up, including clarinet, flute, soprano sax, or other rare ones, but they are often flexible.
In the trumpets, trumpet 1 is lead and only has “lead style” solos. Trumpet 2 is usually “backup” lead and functions as a sort of utility spot. A good 2nd trumpet is a great lead player, after all. Trumpet 3 gets a majority of the solos, and trumpet 4 will get a solo now and then, especially to contrast the 3rd player, but is mostly a safe part when your lead player needs some relief.
Trombone 1 functions similarly to trumpet 1, but trombone 2 gets a majority of the solo space. Trombone 3 has utility parts and some written solos, and trombone 4 sometimes has bass trombone parts. In the swing era, the bass trombone wasn’t really used until bands like Stan Kenton utilized them, so it’s a mixed bag.
The rhythm section is pretty standard.
The Ellington 7-piece is my own label, which describes the band that Johnny Hodges led in the 1930s and 1940s. Johnny Hodges was Duke Ellington’s long time lead alto player and made many famous recordings with the band. On the side he had a small group that prominently featured himself, with mostly Ellington-penned pieces, which are mostly obscure now. This is a lighter, cooler dance band that puts more emphasis on the soloists and simpler forms as opposed to the big bands of the time, which could be heavier, brassier, and full of more ensemble passages and big riffs.
The Ellington 7-piece features a 4-horn front line of alto sax, bari sax, trumpet and trombone, plus piano, bass, and drums. Everyone should be expected to solo, blend, and play with confidence. This is a great ensemble size if you need something smaller than a big band that has an organized, tightly-constructed sound that still swings hard and gives people something to dance to.
Difficulty is graded on a scale from 1 to 5. 1 is the easiest and is playable by a band of players new to jazz and still relatively new to their instruments. 5 is a professional level piece that would be tough for even a pro band to sight-read.
My idea of what a Level 1 chart is may be different from what you are used to. Level 1 charts in the educational world are often written specifically for the younger, less experienced ensembles. However, since most of the music found here was played by professional ensembles, there are very few low-level songs, so you may want to scale your expectations slightly.
The lead trumpet range listed on the product pages is transposed. So, if it says that C6 is the highest note, that’s the exact note the player would see on the page.
Frequently
Asked Questions
I work original recordings performed by the original bands, and often those older bands only had one to three trombone parts. To expand up to the modern standard of four trombones, a rewrite is usually needed. If you keep the original lead trombone where it’s at, in a lower range that allowed for a more fluid and light swing, your 4-part trombone voicing regularly leads to muddy lower parts that are clunky to play and violate low interval limits. When this happens, I change the lead trombone to make the corresponding lower parts clearer. This is a necessary evil, a tradeoff of adjusting the original trombone part to get an overall strong sound from the ensemble. You can read more about this here.
I can always guarantee that these new parts will still sound perfect. I don’t take wild guesses, I put myself in the mind of the arranger and try to decode what they were doing, so even if this new part is “wrong,” it’s still accurate in spirit and can be played along with the original recording.
I try to standardize things to produce a better representation of what the original players had on their music stands, before they put their own personal touch on the music. Sometimes I feel like a particular note was incorrectly played, or that a recorded interpretation of a section is too specific and not worth tethering a new player to. There are countless decisions I have to make for each piece based on a number of factors, and I try to standardize things enough so that my transcriptions work for everyone. It also encourages players to listen to the original music, which is more important in a jazz/music education setting than anything else. That thoughtful balance is what puts my transcriptions on a higher level than anything else available on the market.
In the swing era, players played with a fat full style that was very organic and full sounding. A staccato articulation over a quarter note usually leads us to believe that it should be played extremely short and clipped, while a marcato accent implies short, clipped, and accented. However, these sounds rarely are heard. Instead, quarter notes are played with separation and fullness. This leads to better timing, bigger sound, and a more human performance. So, in my pieces, unmarked quarter notes are full but separated. Legato markings are for long and connected, staccato are for actual short and clipped.
Another small stylistic quirk of the era is a separated, almost laid back pair of 8th notes. You’ll see and hear it all over the place, across many bands. Two staccato/legato articulations over a 1and set of 8th notes means to separate them but not play them clipped.
The easiest solution is to avoid pieces that have an alto player double on clarinet, or the bari double on alto, etc etc. After that, try soprano saxophone for clarinet, if that is more familiar to your player. Don’t be afraid to insist that your saxes learn a double, even if you are a younger band! Sax doubles increase their value as a working musician and helps them get more work, so the sooner you learn them, the sooner you can jump to the front of the line out there!
That said, when that is just not an option, I can help you! You can get any chart customized to remove doubles for an additional fee. Head over to the customized project page or customize the chart you like from its product page.
CAATT is short for clarinet, alto1, alto2, tenor1, tenor2. The modern setup is AATTB (B for bari). In modern AATTB bands, to get the quick CAATT setup, the bari player switches to alto and the 2nd alto switches to clarinet.
A standard instrumentation of the swing era had just four saxes arranged in AATT, with various players doubling on clarinet. Certain big band leaders who were clarinet players monopolized the instrument in popularity and were more of a featured soloist out front with the AATT playing the ensemble stuff. Two notable uses of CAATT were in Benny Goodman’s band, where Goodman played the clarinet part as almost entirely a solo position with his four saxes often playing independently, and Glenn Miller’s band, where the “Glenn Miller sound” had five woodwinds with the clarinet on the melody, the 2nd tenor doubled down an octave, and AAT filling out the harmony in the middle.
Eventually big bands moved away from clarinet lead and evolved into permanent AATTB. For accuracy’s sake, this store features both setups, as most modern bands have the common doubling setup described above. The default here is always AATTB though, with CAATT indicated when applicable. If that doesn’t work for your band, though, contact me through the custom work form for a particular song and I will take care of you!
I am always happy to check out your work and talk about it with you if you are interested. I also provide composition, arranging, and music theory lessons. However, I cannot publish your work here. Contact me for more information.
My version will be better.
Many transcriptions of swing era pieces do not take historical arranging and orchestrational concepts into consideration–early bands had only four saxes, three trumpets, and two trombones, which are rarely properly adapted to the modernized 5/4/4. The result is a muddy, uneven sound that is radically different from what a tight 9-piece horn section sounds like. My versions always take that into consideration and make the necessary adjustments needed to produce a crisp but fluid ensemble sound.
In other transcriptions you also see an incomplete understanding of harmony. For example: hearing a C#dim7 chord in the horns in the key of F, in between a G-7 and an F6 chord, is virtually never a C#dim7–it’s a C7(b9). I see it constantly in other charts, and players today can spot that “good enough” approach a mile away. Arrangers in the swing era were well-trained and meticulous in their details. My transcriptions respect their work and their talent and get it right.
You will also find that my notation is always immaculate and designed for the worst case scenario–the sight-reading band with no director. Many of us are used to rehearsing and working with someone who can cue us and help keep us on track, but the worst case scenario, which is extremely common out in the working world, is to get a count off from the drummer and be completely on your own. My parts have the simplest roadmap possible and the clearest parts I can create. I fall on the side of “a little extra” information over “not enough.” There are no object collisions, there are extra rehearsal letters, there are clear mute indicators, etc. You get the cleanest parts possible!
All of this adds up to – you get an accurate transcription, thoughtfully adapted, respectful of the original, and perfectly sightreadable.
