Creative Directions in Jazz

Published October 14, 2022

Creative Directions in Jazz

October 21, 2022, will be a very special day for the Reno Jazz Orchestra (RJO) as we perform original compositions and arrangements as part of UPSTAGE: A Literary and Performing Art Series supported by the Nightingale Family Foundation and the Williams Foundation.

Join the RJO in the Nevada Museum of Art’s (NMA) Sky Room for the 7:30pm performance where we will feature compositions by former and current RJO members Larry Engstrom, Hans Halt, Julien Knowles, and myself. Led by music director Jonathan Phillips, the seventeen-piece orchestra invites you on a forward-looking musical journey exploring these new and creative directions in jazz.

This concert will be followed by two days of the orchestra recording the compositions at UNR. Creative Directions in Jazz is a first for the RJO as our previous five albums were material previously recorded by others, either purchased or arranged by members of the RJO. Spirits, the RJO’s most recent album, for example, is the music of Earth, Wind, and Fire arranged by several RJO musicians for the orchestra.

Here are the composers’ thoughts on their compositions...

Larry Engstrom

Ineluctable Modality

I composed my song originally as a jazz quintet for the Collective. After we recorded it I thought it might make a good big band tune so I sketched out some ideas. In those days I was quite busy with my job as an administrator at UNR so I pretty much stopped writing it and forgot about it. After retiring last year, I finally found the time to finish it. The gist of the piece is the play between an insistent (ineluctable) sound (modality) and the freedom for the soloists to go in and/or stay out of that basic modality.

Hans Halt

Osmosis

I often begin a piece with two distinct chord changes that will inspire a melody. In this case the chords inspired a bass line which is doubled by the piano. From here I improvised a melody over the harmony until something caught my ear and I crafted it into a final melody. From the outset I wanted this piece to have 3 distinct sections. The third section changes from a loose 12/8 feel to a straight rock feel inspired by the group Kneebody, an electronic jazz group influenced by rock/electronic music.

Hansepts

I used an entirely different approach for Hansepts because I wrote the rhythm of the melody first before choosing the notes. This inspired me to come up with a melody that I would not normally have thought of. The rhythm is based on the S. Indian approach to rhythm using combinations of twos and threes. The song is very open harmonically, simply based on two contrasting vamps. The first section is very loose and open with the main melody starting followed by a counter melody. The second vamp kicks into a more rhythmic groove building in energy eventually releasing back to a more peaceful initial vamp. The simple harmony is designed to inspire an interactive free approach to the solos, gradually building in intensity for a climactic finish.

Chuck Reider

Push

Listening to a song by the group “Motet” I was taken by the driving bass drum that propelled the entire song something along the lines of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). I took that concept and wrote an original song. During the solo sections I broke down the bass drum and percussion to create a change of atmosphere, creating room to build the intensity and push the soloists. The melody returns for a big finish!

Vielle Chanson Nouvelle

This composition came from two separate concepts. The first was cell division and how one cell can divide over and over to create a fully formed being. The beginning of the piece starts simply with flutes playing a choice of three notes in slow rhythm with a soprano saxophone soloing over the top. Other instruments join in over time and the rhythms get more complex and at last the melody arrives and solos follow. The second concept was finding a church hymn and incorporating it into a contemporary piece, something classical composers have used as far back as J. S. Bach. I chose A Mighty Fortress is Our God where elements of the melody are used throughout the piece. The composition ends with a straight-forward reading of the melody but reharmonized for a more contemporary underpinning.

Julien Knowles

The arrangements I wrote for September Fifteenth and Cloud of Flies were originally made to debut for an RJO project in May of 2020, with a focus on shifting the modern conception of a "big band" as is commonly utilized in jazz and improvised music. Using a mixture of electric and acoustic instruments not commonly performed alongside one another— such as electric keyboard, acoustic piano, clarinets, flute, electric bass, vibraphone, electric guitar, etc.— I have reconfigured two pieces that have had a profound emotional effect on me. With these larger arrangements I aimed to illuminate the haunting lyrics of Louis Cole and the eloquent harmony of Metheny and Mays' remembrance of Bill Evans in a grander way.

Parallel Conversations is an original composition of mine derived from short musical "themes" given to me by composer/pianist Billy Childs, my compositional mentor at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. The goal was to create a piece that relies entirely on these miniature themes, constantly shifting them between all voices in the ensemble to craft a seamless flow and explore all the musical possibilities hidden beneath these themes. As these themes bounce around the ensemble throughout the piece, you'll notice how the musical conversations created amongst the group begin to run parallel to one another.

Creative Directions in Jazz is a first for the RJO and, I think, the northern Nevada jazz community at large. I am thrilled the orchestra and all our supporters have made this event possible. To purchase tickets for this event and our November tribute to Thad Jones follow this link: renojazzorchestra.org/gigs

Interested in sponsoring the recording project? Contact me and I will be happy to tell you how you can! Chuck@renojazzorchestra.org