HAWK TIME MUSIC PUBLISHING (ASCAP)
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Jazz Compositions/Arrangements
After concert @ the Weinberg Theater (Frederick, Maryland) with my old Rutgers University boss, "The Baron" himself, Kenny Barron.
After concert @ Weigel Hall on The Ohio State Univ. campus (Columbus, Ohio). At the piano (wearing hat . . and hair) with the late, great Gene Walker on tenor sax.
After afternoon concert @ Borders (Washington, D.C) with jazz/classical musician Wynton Marsalis
JAZZ
Growing up in the small town of Clover, South Carolina, I thought Ray Charles was as "jazz" as jazz could get. When I got to college, one of my professors, Howard T. Pearsall, told me that I needed to listen to Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. I thought the old guy didn't know what he was talking about so my response was, "Who are those guys?" Needless to say, I found out real fast. I had an old album of Johnny Mathis (don't laugh) singing "My Funny Valentine" so I compared it to one of Miles Davis' renditions. Wow!! I was hooked! Not only did I find myself purchasing all the Miles recordings my college allowance would allow, I also gravitated to the players he performed with and the players who performed with them, and so on. To me, these performers were geniuses.
Before venturing into the catalog, please check out 3 of my arrangements. The first two are brief excerpts that feature Chaka Khan with the Lionel Hampton Big Band. Both tunes were performed at an outdoor concert in Hartford, Connecticut back around 2002 or 2003. The first arrangement is Chick Corea's High Wire The Aerialist and the second is Gershwin's I Love's You Porgy. The recording quality of these excerpts are bad and were never intended for commercial use but you can get a sense of the arrangements:
The last example is the entire jazz trio-with-strings arrangement of I Wish I'd Met You that appears on the recording Introducing Lavenia Nesmith which can be purchased from most recognized online music outlets:
Included in the collection below are jazz arrangements (mostly big band) and compositions that I have developed over the years. All are for purchase, no rentals.
Jazz Catalog
MY EARLY SAX PLAYIN' DAYS (rough recordings)
