Battle Hymn of Iowa

This video just in:

Here’s the Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band playing my brand-new arrangement of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Inspired by Elvis’ version in his 1972 American Trilogy. There’s a nice talkover narration in the middle followed by wailing brass at the end.

Dig it.

2 New Sax Quartets

» Listen & View Score

» Listen & View Score

Here’s why I’m excited about these new arrangements:

• They’re long overdue, especially Swing Low.

• They sound great.

• They’re quite playable.

• They’re scored AATB flex. Though I wrote these AATB, there are substitute parts for each of the four saxophones, allowing for maximum flexibility.

• They’re road-tested with students and pros.

• Ode to Joy is especially great to use with as many sax players as you can gather.

Please do check them out — I think you’ll like them.

Halftime update

This year I got to write a boatload of halftime music for the great university marching bands at Penn State, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Here’s the music that has been performed so far:

Penn State University Blue Band

Bye, Bye, Bye (NSYNC) / Sucker (Jonas Brothers)

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Firebird Suite (Stravinsky)

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MARVEL UNIVERSE: Marvel Studios Fanfare, Avengers Theme, Can You Dig It?, Awesome Mixtape Vol. 1, Black Panther

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University of Wisconsin Badger Band

FUNK SHOW REHEARSAL:

You’re Still a Young Man/What Is Hip, Higher Ground, Through the Fire, Let’s Groove, Uptown Funk

PIANO SHOW REHEARSAL:

Piano Man, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, Empire State of Mind, Love Song, Bad Romance/Shallow

BROADWAY SHOW:

Opening Up, Lady Marmalade, Waving Through a Window, Alexander Hamilton/the Room Where it Happens

NO VIDEO FOOTAGE AVAILABLE :-(

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LADY GAGA (Bad Romance/Shallow) in LAMBEAU at halftime of Packers-Raiders game!

Still to come this season

University of Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band — one selection TBA at Nov. 9 game honoring Veterans Day

Penn State Blue Band — entire halftime show TBA vs. Rutgers on Nov. 30

With any luck at all, I’ll be able to track down some videos after those games.

new Strut bootleg

The US Navy Commodores played a concert Monday at State College Area High School, which is right down the street from my house, and many of my students attend.

To my delight (and surprise!) they played two of my tunes, Giddyup! and Strut. Of course, they sounded incredible. SO locked in, yet flexible with the music.

I ‘filmed’ them playing Strut. Dig their amazing bass trombonist Matt Neff absolutely owning this music:

p.s. Sorry for the lousy video work (the audio is decent, though!)

p.p.s. Strut has been flying off the shelves. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the score, please do.

new Badger Band arranger

I’ve been arranging halftime music for the Penn State Blue Band annually since 2002. Listen to many of those arrangements here.

As of this marching band — I mean football season — I am now a contributing arranger for the University of Wisconsin Badger Band.

I’ve arranged the full halftime shows that will be performed on Sept. 21, Oct. 5, and Oct. 12. I’m thrilled to be writing for this iconic college marching band.

As a side note, I’ll also be arranging one tune for the University of Iowa Hawkeye Band (as I did last season, too).

Stay tuned…

Fraser Street Sax Camp

Middle school group performing for parents on last day of camp

For some reason I thought it’d be a fun idea to run a saxophone camp. Indeed, it was a blast!

For a week in late June I had twenty-two middle and high school saxophonists for half days. We rehearsed in small and large groups, had special guests David Stambler (Penn State saxophone professor) and Dan Yoder (Stambler’s predecessor!), had a saxophone petting zoo provided by our local saxophone tech-extraordinaire, Jack Eggert; and performed for friends and family in the park across the street.

I shared the teaching duties with a few of my former students, all now in college: Ian Brannan (Penn State Music Ed.), Alex Rothstein (Lawrence Conservatory Bio/Jazz Studies dual degree), and Shane McCandless (U of Miami, Jazz Studies).

The camp was an outgrowth of my after-school saxophone ensemble, the Fraser Street Saxes.

As you can see from the pic above, we even got snazzy t-shirts!

3 New Jazz Ens. Charts

I’ve just released three brand-new pieces for jazz ensemble.

And the coolest part is that all three of these have been received the Editors’ Choice designation in the JW Pepper catalog.

James Brown goes big band • Grade 4 • Bass Trombone or Bari Sax feat.

Oh yes, it’s raucous.

Check it out

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Up-tempo swinger • In a Japanese Pentatonic mode • Grade 4-5

Alto & Trumpet feature • B.Y.O.G. (Bring Your Own Gong)

Check it out

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Grade 1 • Sneaky, swingy, and bluesy • Don’t wake Mom and Dad!

Check it out

Commodores Strut

To my delight, the U.S. Navy Commodores have been performing a couple of my charts recently.

Here’s a gig tape of them playing my so-new-the-toner-is-still-warm Strut, featuring bass trombonist extraordinaire Matt Neff.

Oy, what a band.

Blue Band holidays

Last Saturday (Nov. 24, 2018) marked the Penn State Blue Band’s final halftime show of the regular season. In the rain/sleet they performed three brand-new arrangements of mine:

• Carol of the Bells (a la DCI!)

• All I Want for Christmas (a la Big 10 dance feature)

• Auld Lang Syne (a la too much champagne / Second Line vibe)

They’re standing still due to the field conditions (rain/sleet).

Tango time

I just stumbled across a couple videos that made my day. Both are performances by high school jazz bands of Tonight, We Tango.

The first one features tango dancers (students and faculty!!) and the second features a soloist playing the accordion part on melodica, which sounds fantastic.

Sincere thanks to these bands and the many others who’ve embraced the joy of the Tango.

Arroyo High School Knights Jazz Band performs "Tonight, We Tango" at "2018 Spring Spectacular", Featuring Arroyo Dance Department.

Arlington Jazz Machine plays Tonight, We Tango.