Monk Suite, Part 3

So, late yesterday night I finally finished getting the notes in for Round Midnight, which is the third and final movement of the Monk Suite.  This one took more work than “Well You Needn’t” in some ways. The reason is that this is the one song I originally arranged from a “bad” chart. (Also, a very commonly-used, and commonly-known, I used the old Real Book chart, which has some speculative harmony that doesn’t match Monk’s very well. I think it’s the chord changes Miles Davis used, as mentioned here.) Ethan Iverson’s discussion of Monk’s misrepresentation in general is what made …

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Murder in the Cathedral

This is one more post about a music project that’s ongoing. This one was on hiatus for a long time, but finally is close to done, with all input completed and only dynamic markings needing to be added to some of the pieces.  It was back in 1995-96 that I composed some program music for the T.S. Eliot play Murder in the Cathedral. The music I actually composed never got performed—it was too tough for the voice to handle given the amount of rehearsal time we had when I gave them the music. (That’s on me: I didn’t budget enough …

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Monk Suite, One Page at a Time

I’m no sure how many people out there are really tracking my notation projects, but this is an update about my current one, notating “Monk Suite”–an arrangement of tunes by Thelonious Monk for jazz quintet and orchestra that I put together as an undergrad student.

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