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I can make your group sound better! I'm available to write
music for your band. I can compose (write a brand new piece), arrange
(take an existing piece and make it work for your band or change its
style), and transcribe (listen to a recording and copy down what I hear
note for note). My specialty is jazz music, and I can write anything
you need in the jazz idiom for a band, whether it's a full jazz orchestra
or a smaller combo. I can also write charts for marching bands, pep
bands, and any other ensemble that uses lots of wind instruments. While
in college, I wrote numerous charts for the Southern Comfort Jazz Orchestra,
Blue Ascendance (funk/rock group with horn section and vocal trio),
and jazz combos. Now, I write for my own jazz octet (see Ensembles page!),
the Memphis Jazz Orchestra, the Arlington High jazz band, blues musician
Jimbo Mathus, soul band Jumpback Jake, and more. My arranging and composing
has been featured on about a dozen albums and a TV commercial.
Why should you hire me to write for you?
- I can tailor what I write for your group's ability.
Do you lead a middle school jazz band? A semi-pro big band? A jazz
orchestra made of of the best players in the state? Clearly, these
three bands need different charts. I'll write something at an appropriate
difficulty for your group.
- I can tailor what I write for your instrumentation and for the abilities
of the players. Say you have a high school jazz band with six saxophones
including a spectacular solo tenor, one trombone, and seven trumpets
but no strong lead trumpet. Stock charts will sound weird with your
group; but if you tell me your band's size, strengths, and weaknesses
I can write one that will fit it like a glove. Just tell me what you
have and I'll make it work.
- I can take requests. Is there an obscure tune you'd love to do with
your band but you can't find a chart? Do you want a combo arrangement
of a big band chart or vice-versa? Just get me a recording and I'll
do it.
- I know the instruments I'm writing for. I'm familiar with all the
common jazz instruments, and know exactly what kinds of figures are
easy, hard, impossible, ugly, beautiful, and so on. Though the parts
may be challenging, everything will be characteristic and comfortably
playable.
- All my charts are printed using Sibelius music software and will
be clear and legible, with key signatures and clefs on every line
(see scanned pages). No hand-written scribble, no computer printing
designed to look like handwritten scribble, no missing key signatures,
and no missing rests like music done in Finale tends to have. The
parts will be stored on my computer in case you lose one. You'll get
a score and all the parts. I do my scores in written pitch, but if
you want a concert score, just ask. If you actually want the computer
font that looks like hand-written scribble, you're crazy, but I'll
be glad to print it that way for you.
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