Jazzy Stuff for Horn

Normally this time of the summer I am playing principal horn on orchestral concerts at the Brevard Music Center. I took Brevard off this summer however to perform and teach in China and Taiwan and to work on publications. This summer has turned into one where in terms of performance I am focusing on jazz, mellophones, and horns pitched in high F.

My recital program in China and Taiwan included the first Wilder sonata which is jazzy (I will repeat that program in late August) but lately I have been playing the most the Song Suite in Jazz Style for horn and piano by Douglas Hill. It was composed in 1993 (and has been recorded by Jeff Snedeker) and I feel is a piece well worth performing. Besides that work I have been focusing on a couple of tunes from volume I of the Thomas Bacon collection Jazz Café (especially the Vincent Chancey tunes) and also tunes from Ken’s Jazz Lounge, a horn oriented jazz play-a-long book and CD (especially the Miles Davis tunes). These are all worthwhile publications if you are interested in jazz horn.

In all of these I have been especially working on building up my high F horn technique. It is interesting; the classic mellophone jazz recordings I recently purchased, if I did not know they were mellophones, it would be easy to hear them as descant horns– the sound is surprisingly similar to modern jazz horn players on descant. I really enjoy the Don Elliott recording with Paul Desmond (late 1950s, but two tracks are I am sure Elliott is on trumpet, not mello) and also Stan Kenton (Adventures in Jazz, Mellophonium Moods, and Kenton’s West Side Story, from the period he used a section of four mellophones, early 1960s). I hear a strong connection to the descant horn in their approach; if you are interested in jazz horn these recordings are also well worth checking out.