Mountlake Terrace High School Jazz Band Premieres Two of My Arrangements at Hot Java Cool Jazz

When Mountlake Terrace High School band director Darin Faul approached me earlier this year to arrange Norah Jones' "Back to Manhattan" for the MTHS Jazz Band, I was excited, flattered, and most of all thankful -- I needed the work, too! There wasn't much to it, mainly just adding a backdrop to the original version, staying out of the way of the vocalist. But the last two things I've arranged for him -- Duke Ellington's "The Single Petal of a Rose" and Artie Shaw's "Concerto for Clarinet" -- were somewhat more daunting tasks. Ellington himself only recorded the piece as a solo piano composition, and the Artie Shaw piece had originally been recorded for a full orchestra -- and then there were the reputations of the pieces and the artists themselves. With a quick turnaround time needed for their Hot Java Cool Jazz performance, I had to squeeze all my musical and physical juices to get something completed that I was happy with.

Well, after seeing these two videos from the concert, I can only say, "Bravo!" The Mountlake Terrace High School Jazz Band, under the direction of Darin Faul, has hit a series of home-runs with these new charts, and made a whole ton of music out of some ink I put on a page. You clearly got the vibes I was going for, and then some. Bravo! Enjoy the videos of the two charts below: