SOUND and SCORE SAMPLES:

    Here’s some audio clips from the CD with some score samples.  ENJOY!

{this is} for trumpet and piano - James Miley

    movement one - 42 Years Later

{this is} for trumpet and piano - James Miley

    movement two - Under the Rug

{this is} for trumpet and piano - James Miley

    movement three - ...By the Time I Looked Down It Was Too Late

Solitude - Steve Owen

Confronting Inertia - Erik Ferguson

Cantus for Trumpet and Electronics - Eric Nathan

From the Barrage Comes Clarity - Dan Cavanagh

part one

From the Barrage Comes Clarity - Dan Cavanagh

part two

Progressing to the One State or the Other - Benjamin Boone

Peace

SCORE SAMPLES COMING SOON!

Progressing to the One State or the Other - Benjamin Boone

RAGE

SCORE SAMPLE COMING SOON!

THOUGHTS:

    {this is} was the first piece completed for the CD.  At the time, James and I were teaching together at Virginia Tech (James has moved on to Willamette University in Salem Oregon, good for him, bad for me!) and we worked closely on this piece.  This piece was also the model for all of the other works on the CD, not that they were patterned after James’ piece, but that when they asked for an example of what I was asking for, I pointed them to James’ piece.  {this is} was premiered on February 6, 2008 on a recital in Blacksburg, VA.  Also, {this is} was included in my dissertation, completed in April of 2009:

                “Expanding the Trumpet Repertoire:

                A Pedagogical Exploration of

                Four Diverse Works for Trumpet by

                Bertold Hummel, James Miley,

                Karl Pilss, and Joseph Turrin”

Mvt. 1 Piano Ostinato

James Miley

    The first movement showcases a couple different stylistic sections including references to Radiohead and Steve Reich.  The middle section features an ostinato in 13/4 which is the foundation for the improvisation section.  The improvisation is described as “atmospheric improvisation” which differs from improvisation in a jazz context for numerous reasons, most of all that there is no interaction between the players.  In this recorded version, I used a harmon mute with the stem in and utilize a lot of trills, valve tremolos, and actually removing the mute while playing to get the atmospheric sounds I was after.  With this, the options are limitless, any device used to create interesting textures are ideal to use over this section.  

    Another interesting aspect of this first movement is the use of a chord only known as the “Miley Chord”.  The Miley chord uses scale degrees 1,2,5,7 of a major scale.  Usually Miley uses that cluster (in any and all inversions) with an additional bass note not related to the key.  He also used it as melodic material seen below.  This line goes through 4 different keys but stays true to the 1,2,5,7 structure.

The program from my DMA lecture recital in Miami

THOUGHTS:

    Movement two is a slow movement showcasing the lyricism and dark nature of the flugelhorn with a highly contrasting middle section.  This was originally done with a bucket mute but after more consideration James and I agreed that Flugel was the way to go.  The most difficult aspect of this movement is trying to line up the trumpet line with all of the grace notes in the piano, lucky for me Tracy is an exceptional musician with great musical instincts.

Tracy and I at the premiere of {this is} on Feb. 6, 2008 in Blacksburg, VA

    The middle section of this movement is extremely unique and like most of this piece continued to evolve throughout the compositional process and even after the premiere, and even during the recording session itself, as James was the producer of the CD.  The piano line here is marked: “with a touch of creepy antique music box.“

    The trumpet part here was originally in the first draft without any of the harmonics.  James’ instructions to me were to find some kind of crazy Kenny Wheeler sound or some weird mute sound.  What we ultimately decided on was playing the section in a cup mute, with the first valve slide removed.  Alternate fingerings are required to get the approximate pitches of the line notated but the overall, the section played like this is quite effectively musically.   

    When you hear the recording, you’ll notice that the open sounds (first slide removed) and the muted sounds are panned to represent the sounds traveling in different directions.  In the studio, Jon Utt and I came up with the idea of recording this section with two mics instead of one, placing one of the mics as close as we could get to the first valve slide.  While playing through this, James decided that we needed more crazy sounds on the longer notes, which resulted in the weird uncontrolled trills.  Overall, this section is a great contrast to the Flugel sections.

Under the Rug - middle section

THOUGHTS:

    The third movement of {this is} contains the most obvious examples of jazz in the piece.  The movement is built on diminished scales and the middle section beginning with the trumpet cadenza is dominated by a fragment of a II/V/I lick traced back to Charlie Parker.  Other stylistic influences heard in this movement are Shostakovich (driving quarter note lines in the piano), Stravinsky, and some 1930’s big band sounds using a solo tone mute. 

    The two examples below are taken from Charlie Parker’s solos on Au Privave, the lower excerpt is the trumpet cadenza from the middle of the third movement.

    During live performances, the last phrase of the cadenza is played into the lid of the piano, using the piano as a sound board.  We weren’t successful duplicating this effect in the studio, so instead we went the electronics route adding effects after the fact.  Both are musically effective.

James and I as guest artists in Reno, NV

THOUGHTS:

    Steve Owen has had a tremendous impact on my life.  It started when Steve gave my high school jazz band a clinic at the Reno Jazz Festival when I was a sophomore or junior.  I knew then that I should take every opportunity to get to work with Steve.  Some 7-8 years later, I got my chance when I got a Graduate Teaching Assistantship at the University of Oregon. 

    During my time there (and since) I have learned an unbelievable amount from Steve and certainly would not be where I am today with out his guidance.  Needless to say, when I was looking for composers for this project, Steve was at the top of my list, and he wrote a great piece. 

THOUGHTS:

    Confronting Inertia is the second major work that Erik Ferguson and I have worked on together.  I met Erik while we were both Masters students at the University of Oregon.  While he was majoring in composition at the UofO, he continued to play trumpet and we played together in the Oregon Jazz Ensemble for 3 years.  We are also for ever linked by our loyalty and fanaticism for the Denver Broncos.       

    Erik’s first piece written for me was his Sonata #2 for Trumpet and Piano (listen here!) which ended up being the centerpiece for the recording that won me DownBeat Magazines “Best Classical Instrumentalist” in 2003. 

    The piece itself is a somewhat autobiographical culmination of the various styles that Erik has explored (or been forced to endure) over the years.  You will hear influences including everything from Bach counterpoint to 60’s Miles, to Mariachi.  Even with all of those influences, Erik’s experience and familiarity with trumpet/piano music makes Confronting Inertia the most traditional sounding piece on this CD. 

    Confronting Inertia begins with the opening choral progression and theme presented with harmon mute that leads into the improvisational section.  Like the Miley, the improvisation is over a piano ostinato.  For the recording, Erik and I decided to add effects to this section trying to channel some late Miles.

    There are NUMEROUS trumpet challenges playing this piece with extreme range demands including many wide and frequent skips.  Despite this, the piece is playable largely due to the way that the piece is paced.  There are frequent and substantial rests for the trumpet while helping transition from section to section.

Confronting Inertia Ostinato

    Solitude was premiered at a trumpet studio recital at Virginia Tech in December of 2008, just one month before the recording.  It is beautifully paced and impressionistic in style, and broken into five major sections.  All linked together by the constant pedal point and half note pulse in the piano, the first three sections build and increase in speed leading to the climax immediately before the trumpet cadenza.  Following the cadenza, the initial theme returns and winds down to its peaceful conclusion.

More UO Graduation Pics! 

Steve and I at my UO Graduation in 2004

THOUGHTS:

   I met Eric Nathan in February of 2007 when I performed the solo trumpet part on Nathan’s composition Nightscape/Daybreak with the Virginia Intercollegiate Band. During this workshop, Eric and I discussed his idea for a trumpet and electronics piece using improvisation, mutes, and the removal of slides to produce quarter-tones and harmonics.  The result was Cantus.  Since writing this piece, he has also written a Cantus for Saxophone and Electronics.

    Eric, being a trumpet player himself in addition to a composer, did a great job notating this piece in a way that is easy to understand, especially with the harmonics and contemporary trumpet techniques required.  The piece is performed with a pre-recorded electronic track but also requires a microphone and some type of reverb unit. 

    In the studio we had many more options than what would be available in a live performance setting.  Like the second movement of James Miley’s sonata, we recorded the opening 2-3 minutes with two mics.  This time the mute is a harmon mute with the stem in and the second valve slide removed.  As you can see from the notation in the part, there are many instances where the trumpet switches from open (2nd valve slide removed) to muted sounds.     

Eric and I at the Virginia Intercollegiate Band workshop

    The second major section of the piece is with out mute and uses a lot of improvisation following graphic notation seen below.

    The final section winds down with some interplay and echos of the trumpet by the electronics.

Tracy and I on stage at the premiere in November of 2008

THOUGHTS:

    From the Barrage Comes Clarity was the second piece that was completed for this project.  Tracy and I premiered it with Dan as a guest composer on campus at Virginia Tech in November of 2008.  The Barrage consists of two parts, and the Clarity actually comes first at the beginning of the piece. 

    Dan and I have been great friends since going to school together at the University of Oregon.  Since graduating together in 2004, Dan and I have worked together on with the jazz chamber group Seven Minus and I played lead trumpet on Dan’s first big band CD “Pulse”.  In April of 2009, Dan and I were both involved with the Kandinsky Trio’s Beatdown!  (WATCH HERE!)

    After the statement of the opening “Clarity”, the majority of part one is comprised of a series of interludes of freely cadenza like lines from the trumpet and piano.

THOUGHTS:

    Unlike the tremendous rhythmic freedom of part one, part two is extremely rhythmically active.  It begins with a statement of the heavily syncopated opening theme with trumpet in straight mute (metal, basically it was the brightest and loudest metal st. mute I could find!) and passing that line back and forth with the piano. 

    The second portion of part two sounds to me like a run away chromatically random freight train.  Originally this was going to be an improvised line in the piano but Dan thought better of it and wrote it out.  Over the top of this chromatic line is what I can describe in trumpet geek terms as a bunch of “Jolivet” chords.  In reality, they are mostly augmented and altered dominant chords, but there is a striking resemblance to Jolivet’s Concertino (which also happens to be my favorite trumpet piece of all time). 

    The ending of the Barrage (shown above) is with out a doubt the most difficult six measures of music that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on.  The runs are from Hexatonic scales, meaning that they are mathematically symmetrical  (based on augmented triads) consisting of a half step followed by a minor third.  It turns out that playing these from throughout the entire range of the instrument as 32nd notes is REALLY HARD!  Shocking huh?  I’ve spoken to Dan about this (on numerous occasions) and he takes great pride in creating the hardest thing that I’ve ever played.

    Ben and I started working on RAGE and Peace in December of 2008.  I have to admit when I first saw the rough draft of RAGE, I was incredibly shocked, not in a bad way, but just because I’ve never seen music like that for trumpet.  Here’s the first page of the rough draft:   

Benjamin Boone

    Progressing to the One State of the Other consists of two heavily contrasting pieces, Peace, and RAGE.  Peace is the most “jazzy” sounding piece on the CD.  It is also the only piece that uses improvisation over chord changes. 

    Here’s a couple of quotes that Ben sent me about the piece:

"Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heaven creature or into a hellish creature – either into a creature that is in harmony … with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred  …  with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other." – C. S. Lewis

"In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages."

– Swami Brahmanada

A couple things worth noting about the recording of RAGE:

    My favorite note of the whole cd is a Low A about 3/4 of the way through the piece, a great re-write in my opinion :-)

    Elizabeth McLain does some awesome bashing of piano strings at the end.  She was hitting the inside of the piano so hard, to create the low rumbling sound, that you could see marks on her hands from the strings!

    Ben and I worked a lot on this making it playable and it is both of our hopes that RAGE, despite it’s technical demands, becomes an often performed part of the trumpet repertoire.  We are also currently working on creating a RAGE Jr, which will be about a 4 minute version and be a little nicer to the chops!

    The best descriptive line I’ve ever seen in a piece of music was when Ben wrote over an improvisational section “play some crazy assed S*%# here!”.  Awesome...

    One of the great and unique aspects of this piece is the equality between the parts and how the trumpet and piano are used to compliment each other and in some cases mirror each other.  Both parts require a tremendous amount of virtuosity and skill.  This certainly is evident in both part one and part two.

Dan Cavanagh