Continuing with our series of composer essays about the four new pieces you’ll be hearing at our Dec. 10 concert, here’s some words from Eric Allen.  Eric was an original member of the PJCE on trumpet and has contributed many great pieces to our book (including “The Sandwich Maker” which we’ll also be performing on the 10th).  He is currently living in New York where he’s performing on cello (his main instrument) and trumpet and is a participant in this year’s BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop.  This year we asked him to write something related to the Christmas season, but interpreted through his own unique compositional lens. We rehearsed his piece last night and it’s going to be a good one!  Here’s what he has to say:

In September, Andrew asked me if I would be interested in writing some sort of thing based on Christmas music for PJCO’s December concert. I thought this would be an interesting challenge, so I accepted the task.

I started be researching a lot of old Christmas hymns and chants, some dating back to the 13^th century. I found these old melodies very difficult to work with, because they are composed almost entirely of steps, and I prefer melodies with lots of leaps. For no particular reason, I eventually settled on a melody which is associated with “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

The challenge was to adapt the melody to my compositional style, but to still have it be recognizable. In my arrangement, I changed which notes in the melody receive more stress. I also used a harmonic progression that is unusual, particularly in Christmas music. As the melody progresses, it loses the characteristics of a chant and gains the characteristics of a swing melody. There are only two verses in my arrangement, which are separated by a solo section.

My hope is that out of all the holiday music the audience encounters this year, my arrangement offers a holiday melody in a new and unfamiliar context.

Next up is our co-director Gus Slayton, stay tuned for some thoughts on his new piece soon.  Meanwhile there’s a link over on the right –> for tickets for the Dec. 10 concert!  Cheers.

As we get ready for our Dec. 10 concert, we’re featuring essays by each composer about their new piece which will be debuted at the concert.  This will hopefully introduce you to both the composers and the works and give some perspective on the compositional process as well.

Kyle Williams is a guitarist and composer in town who has been involved with the PJCE since its inception.  He has written us many great pieces (you can hear one of his earlier ones, “The Meadow,” at our audio page) and played guitar on many of our concerts.  This time he’s written a piece called “The Island.” Here’s what he has to say:

The Island

The melodies of this song were stolen from two different songs that I wrote a few years ago. In a sense, I broke up two songs and made one out of their parts. The assembled song then sat around for a while waiting for me to figure out what to do with it and it wasn’t until I wrote lyrics that the song started to have a clear direction. I’m not saying that songwriters should always go out and describe a morning sunrise in song; in my case I added meaning to the notes after the fact. I’m just saying that the story I wrote about gave me inspiration as to how the song should sound as a whole. I wanted to describe an area of land and how it feels about the people who occupy it. I was thinking mostly about Manhattan as a sentient being, about the rising of the sea level, and about how someday the island will be under water. Anyway, a slow swing played by a big band feels quite appropriate.

More pre-concert essays coming after Thanksgiving.  Meanwhile you can get tickets for the Dec. 10 concert here!  Hope to see you there.

We’re looking forward to our next concert on Dec. 10 at the Community Music Center in SE Portland.  We’ll be featuring new music by Charley Gray, director of jazz studies at PSU, Kyle Williams, local guitarist, Gus Slayton, our co-director, and former PJCE member and NYC-based composer/cellist Eric Allen, who’s going to re-imagine some Christmas music for us!

Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 day of show, and $10 for students.  The show is at 8 PM with doors opening at 7 PM.  Get your tickets here!  See you then.

We had a great fundraiser / octet concert over at Gallery 135 in the North Park Blocks last month!  Thanks to everyone who came out to support our first fundraiser as a nonprofit.  The Gallery is a beautiful space that we were lucky to have donated to us for the event.  We also would like to thank Ninkasi Brewery, Van Duzer Winery, New Seasons Market, and DiPrima Dolci Italian Bakery and Cafe for their generous contributions, and of course everyone who contributed to the PJCE at the event.  Special thanks of course go to Darrell Grant, who gave an inspiring speech on the relevance of new music.  Darrell has been a great help to many of us over the years through his teaching at PSU and activities in the community so it was especially nice to have him there.

We premiered four new pieces for octet at the concert by me (Andrew), Gus Slayton, Kevin Van Geem, Dan Duval, and a new arrangement of an existing piece by Lars Campbell.  The music was fresh and varied, as usual at our concerts, from Kevin’s afro-pop grooves in his tune “Eponymous Heironymous” to Gus’s ode to pirates “Send out the Pinnace” and Dan’s minimalist work.  Here’s a bit of an audio montage of some of the music:

“Eponymous Heironymous” by Kevin Van Geem / “No Paint” by Andrew Oliver / untitled composition by Dan Duval / “Send out the Pinnace” by Gus Slayton
Levis Dragulin, trumpet / Lars Campbell, trombone / Mary-Sue Tobin, alto and soprano sax / Gus Slayton, tenor sax / Dan Duval, guitar / Andrew Oliver, piano / Eric Gruber, bass / Kevin Van Geem, drums

Hope you enjoy the sounds.  We’re looking forward to our next concert which will be December 10 at the Community Music Center in SE Portland.  We’ve assembled a great band for this one and will be featuring new compositions by Gus Slayton, Charley Gray (director of jazz studies at PSU), and a special Christmas montage by former Portlander and PJCE member Eric Allen, who’s making it big in New York!  Full details are on the “Performances” page and we’ll be featuring pre-concert essays by the composers here on the blog as well as “Meet the Composer” after the concert.  Tickets will be for sale online very soon, watch for a link in the next week or so.  Hope to see you there!

Recently I’ve developed a strangely anachronistic interest in the more progressive music that was coming out of the West Coast scene in the 1950′s.  Despite the prevailing wisdom of “West Coast Jazz” being rather bland and (forgive me) white, I have found a bunch of really interesting stuff by composer/performers such as Teddy Charles, Jimmy Giuffre, and even Shorty Rogers.

Inspired by some of these early experiments in using classical forms and ideas in a jazz idiom, I have written this new octet piece with some of those elements filtered through my own lens.  Instead of attempting to come up with some sort of new groove or using various folk / world elements as I am wont to do when working on new music, I have written an old-fashioned swinging tune in 4/4 (well, most of the time).  This certainly gives it something of an “older style” sound.

Despite the more traditional rhythmic element, I have also tried to write something far less tonal (i.e. more dissonant) than I usually do.  Although I have been working a lot with various ways of transforming melodies and being as thorough as possible in my compositional process of late, I have still found myself using a lot of consonance.  I really like consonance actually, and I think it speaks more readily to an audience to have harmonic information that they can relate to on a certain level.  Of course, because I am still me, I have not abandoned consonance and tonality altogether, but I have a lot of tension before the inevitable resolution.  We’ll see how that pans out.

I also found myself humming a much faster line as I was working on a slower section of the tune, so there is a rather abrupt but I think fun transition to a totally different feel for a bit in the middle, I’m interested to see how that one pans out in rehearsal and performance as well but I hope it will provide some contrast for the audience.

Anyhow I fear I have gotten a bit too academic here, but the piece is really a bit less programmatic and “story”-driven than some of the things I’ve been working on recently.  I hope that the juxtaposition of more traditional rhythmic material with more dissonant harmonic material will come across in a similar way as my typical balance of complex and syncopated rhythmic material combined with more simple harmonic material.  We’ll see!

And of course, a reminder that tickets are available for the fundraiser here.  Hope to see you there!

In preparation for our fundraiser/concert on the 24th, we’re starting up something which we plan on doing before each concert: posting a series of short essays by the featured composers about their new works.  This will hopefully give you, the audience, insight into both their compositional process and a chance to “meet” them and (hopefully) get excited about what you’ll hear at the show.

We’re starting this one off with Dan Duval, a long-time collaborator and frequent composer for the PJCE.  Dan plays guitar around town with a variety of jazz and non-jazz groups and has developed a unique compositional style which you can hear most recently on his sextet album from last year and with the Ocular Concern.  Here’s what he has to say about his new piece:

Even though I am not currently enrolled in any academic institution, as the summer draws to a close I have been enjoying a pleasantly familiar ‘back to school’ sensation, and have carefully prepared my imagination for the development of this piece.

For me the process of composing detailed creative music is dependent on the parallel writing of a word document in which I outline my plans for the form of the piece and write lists of the techniques that I intend to use. Without at least a short document of this kind, I can’t write effectively for a large ensemble. These notes always include thoughts about the general intentions of the piece, as well. For the piece at hand, I’ve been adjusting my ear to the sound of the acoustic piano, thinking about the meditative gallery space in which the piece will be performed, doing some light research on Messiaen to get my ears and mind accustomed to dissonance and cerebral musical storytelling, and trying to cultivate a heightened sense of lyricism from all the vocalists I’ve been listening to (Theo Bleckmann, Fiona Apple, and Eryka Badu, among others).

In the early stages, I’m often not completely sure what the product will sound like, but I already have a pretty good idea what it will feel like. As I write this essay, this piece already has a sturdy skeleton, but needs much refinement and ornamentation. I am a heavy reviser; my process depends on extended rumination and numerous changes, from the sweeping to the minute.

Even though this branch of the arts is often viewed by the general public as obscure or irrelevant, I believe through its preservation we are simultaneously increasing the world’s beauty and exercising our minds in a manner that breeds a vital blend of serenity and sophistication without which the human race cannot truly flourish.

Coming soon will be some thoughts by me (Andrew Oliver), Gus Slayton, and Kevin Van Geem about our pieces.  Stay tuned!  Meanwhile don’t forget to get tickets for the Sept 24 fundraiser / concert here!

PJCE 2011 Fundraiser tickets