Jazz Quintet Release – Put The Q In Jazz

I so excited and a little scared to present my first album of jazz quintet tracks. Thanks for taking a moment to read and listen!

Jazz Quintet City

This album has been a voyage of discovery in so many ways. For the moment, I’ll just give you the high points.

First of all, at the start of this project, we needed to follow pandemic protocols. This meant that the wind instrument tracks were recorded in individual, home studios. I incorporated the sax and flugelhorn parts back into the rest of the tracks that were recorded at muz4now, inc. (That’s right: this jazz quintet has never performed together in the same room.)

Jazz Adaptability

Xander Dawson was our alto saxophone player. In addition to being a performer who sets a high bar for himself, his understanding of recording technology and scoring were so helpful to this project. He was the copyist for the music scores that we created (and that you can purchase for download if you want to play these jazz pieces).

Our other wind player was Jinjer Gilcrest. After a few technical hiccups, we ended up making a note-for-note, nuance-for-nuance re-creation of their flugelhorn performances using Native Instruments/E-Instruments Session Horns Pro. Having gone through this process, I can’t say enough good about this VI (Virtual Instrument). We think that it came as close as we could imagine to sounding like a real flugelhorn performer.

I’m also grateful to Albert Yost, Frank Manx, and Sammy Stein. Each of these offered critical listening, feedback, and — each in their own wonderful way — affirmation of the project.

Quintet Love

The remaining performers were me. I created the electric piano, upright bass, and drum performances for all eight tracks. In spite of a few minor hitches, I had so much fun making this album. I’m proud to present you with this jazz ensemble album.

Of course, working with other musicians and collaborators makes the creative process more beautifully complex. We had to coordinate a variety of file uploads, flagging updated scores, and finding technical solutions that worked for everyone. Schedules had to change when any one of the creative team had concerns about the latest version of the scores or recordings. Near the end of the project, we completely remixed and remastered the recordings after many more hours of listening to great jazz records.

I do hope you enjoy listening. And if you’re interested in performing these jazz pieces, grab the sheet music now!