http://johnguari.com/music/novemberclip-lab09.mp3
I decided to splice up this clip to give a taste of what my chart “November” sounds like on Lab 2009. Previously I only had the version from my Graduate Recital up. Buy the album if you please!
i’m excited to be joining alastair’s group to sing his music
Actually that is me.
Since being home, I have had a good amount of free time. I’ve been practicing a good bit, working some and subbed in a gig and a rehearsal for the Nova Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. I have some Finale projects that had been put on hold that I probably should now be getting to. There’s no excuse now! Here is a video of “Architect Flagmen” that I combined with the good audio on my music page.
I have the uncompressed .aiff files of my graduate recital. As soon as I convert them to a smaller size (mp3), I’ll post them to this site. It was a great night and there was music made that I’m really proud of. Videos on youtube will also be put up, once I do all the technical stuff.
I’m in New York right now for a week. Hanging out and seeing shows. I saw the Le Boeuf Brothers at the Jazz Gallery last night.
Here’s a live video of Tatiana Mayfield and The Two O’Clock Lab Band playing my arrangement of “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right.” It’ll be performed on my Grad Recital, which is this Thursday at 8:00PM in Kenton Hall on the UNT Campus. Quality recordings of that night will be available here when I receive and upload them.
Hello to my threes of readers.
This post is me putting up links to mp3s of a BUNCH of music that I haven’t gotten around to uploading. I’ll copy this to the recordings page. Most of these are one or two-takes recorded and edited with bare bones audio software (Garageband).
An epic chart I wrote and revised last year. This is a 2nd reading. The tune with kinks worked out and face melting licks having been shedded will close my Grad Recital, which is Thursday, April 23rd at 8:00PM in Kenton Hall on the UNT College of Music Campus.
This is a recording from a performance by the Three O’Clock Lab Band featuring Melissa McMillan on vocals. This was meant to be Basie-ish, complete with stolen riffs.
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Another arrangement for Vocalist and Big Band on one of my favorite Bob Dylan tunes. Tatiana Mayfield is singing on this recording.
A vocal jazz ensemble arrangement with accompaniment. Rhythm and vocal tracks were recorded separately and combined.
My first a capella vocal jazz arrangement. Pretty chords.
Scant posting is my pattern, but I’ve been filling in the gaps of my musical listening.
On the classical side, I’ve listened to Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Holst’s Planets and Copland’s Rodeo. These pieces are about as well known as classical rep gets, and I had listened to portions of them, but not the whole things in their entireties.
On the jazz side, I’ve discovered the joys of Stan Kenton’s Portraits on Standards. We played it last week in the Three O’Clock Lab Band (more on that later). Also John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman is of course superb and essential. Lastly, I finally picked up Snarky Puppy’s latest album, Bring Us the Bright. It’s vastly different from their last record, which was vastly different than the one before that. It’s amoebic music, through and through. Snarky Puppy can exist as a quartet/quintet or have as many as a dozen or more people onstage, and the various styles mash and intermingle with each other. It’s pretty cool stuff.
I’m well into my final semester at UNT. I’m back in the Three O’Clock Lab Band, and excited to be there. The level of musicianship is very high in all sections and we can put stuff together quickly. I’m only taking Lab Band and doubling up on jazz composition lessons this semester, but I always feel like I could use more time. Deadlines are a good thing though, as they make you just cut the crap and do things.
Speaking of which, I should probably hop back on Finale now.
This is one of my more recent big band charts, “Rifts.” This is the recording from the Spring 2008 One O’Clock Lab Band at Lab Band Madness.
This is a clip from a few weeks ago of the UNT U-Tubes performing my arrangement of “I Thought About You” at the Greenhouse in Denton. After having written quite a few non-swinging charts, I decided to get back to basics and something straight ahead.