Hello,

Just wondering what the toughest chart you've ever had to play was. What was it that made it tricky? Did you come up with any "aids" to help you with it, etc.

Myself, my memory is a bit spotty because the last reading gig I had was about 3 years ago... we did a tune by Duke Ellington, the name of which I can't remember, that I had a lot of trouble with at first, because a) it was fast; b) it was in a modal key I hadn't had a lot of experience with; and c) the changes didn't repeat all that often.

First night with a new big band. Scott Reeves called the chart for "Tricotism" with modulations.

Definately some of the salsa charts I was playing last year with Orquestra Melaza. Some of those had the craziest repeats, which at times seemed to jump all over the place, mixed with the occassional few bars of a very tricky syncopated written line I had to play either with or counter to some other part, and (depending on which variation of the tumbao I was playing) the root of each chord is played on the fourth beat of the preceeding measure and tied to the and of one. All of that makes for some tough reading.

Trying to sight read tunes like Speak No Evil at fast tempos can be tough too...

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua
The version of TRICOTISM with OP, Lucky Thompson and Skeeter Best. VERY nice....

Yah, that's a good one! I have that on an ancient mulit-LP collection called "The Bass" Pettiford is SO fluid, and it sounds great too.

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua
We should also have a thread on MOST ****ED UP TO READ CHART.

Hehe... that's basically what I was trying to find out! :)

I'm not sure that any of the charts I've played or seen would qualify as "difficult" by many of you folks' standards (maybe some of the ones in instructional books, which I couldn't do) so I wanted to find out what more advanced readers such as EGG MOCHA thought was difficult...

Do I really want to know? Probably not, but let's hear it anyway.

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua
I thought on all those Wayne/Miles/Herbie tunes, if they're fast enough, all you have to do is sort of walk over Ebsus, Esus and Fsus in no particular order....

I'll try that, and if the tempo isn't fast enough I'll have to double time it.

Oh, and as for the most ****** up chart to read... the charts from the salsa band. Did I mention that the arranger thought that by writing the key signature at the beginning he could write all the chord symbols as naturals like everything was in C major. At first I thought my intonation was just horrendous, then I realized all the D, G and A chords written on the chart were really Db, Gb, and Ab.

Beethoven's 9th

Originally posted by David Kaczorowski


I'll try that, and if the tempo isn't fast enough I'll have to double time it.

Oh, and as for the most ****** up chart to read... the charts from the salsa band. Did I mention that the arranger thought that by writing the key signature at the beginning he could write all the chord symbols as naturals like everything was in C major. At first I thought my intonation was just horrendous, then I realized all the D, G and A chords written on the chart were really Db, Gb, and Ab.

Some of the salsa bands I have played with have had the worst charts. The "roadmap" concept is often overlooked with these bands. double/triple codas , repeats from hell [:-----47-----:] 7x , lack of key sigs...Its often easier to just try and hear it.

How about an outdoor week of West Side Story during an unseasonal cold snap early in the fall (mid 30's). Pretty rough sounding pit orchestra. Especially my chair.

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua

We should also have a thread on MOST ****ED UP TO READ CHART.

This reminded me of a gig I went to at my local Jazz club - so it was the Bobby Wellins quartet - the leader being a very well-respected Scottish tenor player. So the gig was going very well and the rhythm section were really relaxed but getting into it - playing all "standards".

Without any warning, about half way though, Bobby Wellins reached into his bag and pulled out two really scrappy, curled-up pieces of A4 and put them down in front of the pianist and bassplayer - he proceeded to launch into the head - an original ballad with no count-in, before the band had even glanced at this - having played the head, he walked off stage, leaving the pianist and bassist to play extended solos!

So the chord sequence was quite unusual and the feel was equally unique and I could see the bass player getting redder and redder, starting to sweat - whereas before, he had looked completely comfortable with everything - I would like to bet that he would say this chart won Ed's category! :D

A tune by Joanne Brackeen, forgot the name, it was a waltz, with the bass playing the head. On the first runthru, I started playing it, and Joanne said "could you take it up an octave?" which put it in the extreme thumb position...you know, where you're kind of humping the bass. Really pretty melody, and a funny subdivision of time on the B section. She's a great writer.

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua

But I think the hardest was an original brought in to a session by this tenor player Marc Mommaas(sp?), he had a section that had some syncopated figures in 5 in the bass, different figures in the piano, with a 3rd rhythmic feel in the melody, all of which ended up setting up a metric modulation to a new time feel in the following section. Sounded great, but only after a "let's stop and work on this for a minute".


I mentioned before that I got a tune by a local Jazz player/composer that had a written bass line - the main part was two ostinatos in 15/4 - which then changed to three parts in 10/4, occupying the same space. I still have the thing programmed into my microcomposer! ;)

I have also had some pretty bad "Salsa" charts - our band (13/14 piece) has given up on a few! So - everything is on "unexpected" beats of the bar and nobody on the one to signpost changes - I think we have come to understand that you need drummer/percussionist to "simplify" and keep a straight beat going somewhere - most Jazz drummers tend to avoid this, but you just have to have this going or it can be disastrous!

When I first joined the jazz band in university, I wasn't a great sight-reader and it seemed like I was the only one there who had never heard the tunes before. Two charts that gave me some grief were Angel Eyes and Say What?.

The changes in Say What aren't that bad, but we used to play it quite fast and added several bunches of repeats for solos (I tend to miss those!).

Angel Eyes, as I recall, had some odd changes in it; luckily it's slow enough that you have time to think about what you're going to do.

BTW Ed - a little off topic... This is a somewhat lame question since New York is such a huge city, but I'm a big Mark Elf fan and I was wondering if you knew him or have done any work lately that's similar to his type of thing. :confused:

Hey Ed; The gig with Joanne was a few years ago at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. We were the first featured act to play in the new Castle Theater; they were hooking up the board during our soundcheck. It was a trio with a great Seattle drummer named John Bishop. Joanne did about an hour solo first, which was pretty amazing, she was pushing into Cecil Taylor territory for awhile. Made for interesting greenroom listening.

Originally posted by Marcus Johnson
It was a trio with a great Seattle drummer named John Bishop.

That's probably Don Lanphere's rhythm section who bill themselves as New Stories with Bishop, Marc Seales on piano and Doug Miller on bass.

Monte

Monte; them's the guys. Don Lanphere has come out here and kicked our butts on several occasions. Helluva player. I remember, when people asked me what gigs were coming up and I mentioned him, lots of them thought I was working with ZAMFIR, the king of the panpipes:rolleyes:

Ed; I hear what you're saying. I get to play here with lots of guys from your neck of the woods, as well as the left coast and round the world. I used to play regularly with Danny Gottleib when he was passing thru to Japan, and he always reminded me of how sweet I have it. No arguments here:cool:

He is finally starting to get his due this past year. There is a great interview called "Long Overdue Ovation" in this months Jazz Times, and critic Ira Gitler put his latest recording "Home at Last" as one of the top 5 releases of 2001, which I would definitely agree with. If you hadn't heard, they literally thought he was dead in spring / early summer, but he has really battled back.

I've gotten to play with him on two occasions; once in Oklahoma City and once in Wichita, and both were great learning experiences. He is one of the best educators out there. I will never forget my favorite line of his. He came to do a concert with my college big band, had just gotten off the plane in time to make a 10pm rehearsal. He had us kick off the first tune, and then cut it off after about 24 bars saying, "Wow, we have the Kenton brass section, but the sax section sounds like Guy Lombardo's band on a bad day." Ouch. As sad as most of our saxes were that year other than 1st tenor, most didn't even get the insult:rolleyes:

Monte

Originally posted by Don Higdon
Beethoven's 9th

Don - (or any other orchestral players reading!) how do you think this compares for difficulty with some of the great 20th Century orchestral showcases - like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" or Messiaen's "Turangalila Symphonie" ?

I went to a concert of the latter last night, with the London Symphony Orchestra and the 8 Double Bassists were moving incredibly quickly in the 5th and 10th parts! They only just about had time to flick the pages and I'm sure one of them missed it in the middle of the 5th but carried on - the whole work seems hugely demanding for all the 100-plus members of the orchestra?

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield


They only just about had time to flick the pages and I'm sure one of them missed it in the middle of...

page turning is an art of it's own...;)

Yeah,

I'm doing Beethoven's 4th a week from Tuesday, and some of the page turns (esp. the 1st and 3rd mvmts.) are awkward. I spent time this week memorizing the next line until a better turn, or in the case of the Vaughn-Williams "Fantasia on a Theme of THomas Tallis" copying the next page so as not to have to turn the page until a better time.

Monte

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield


Don - (or any other orchestral players reading!) how do you think this compares for difficulty with some of the great 20th Century orchestral showcases - like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" or Messiaen's "Turangalila Symphonie" ?

I don't have enough experience to validate an opinion. This should go to someone with a real job, like kpo

We are playing Rachmaninoffs' Symphony No.2. There are passages that sound like an organized train crash when you are playing it but to listen to it on a CD it is a beautiful piece.

Originally posted by Don Higdon
Beethoven's 9th
I've heard that is just nonsensically, ridiculously difficult to play. A former teacher of mine (Roger Fratena - assistant pricipal of the Dallas SO) responded to the same question with Sir Michael Tippitt's Symphony No. 4. Based on his ridiculous playing and reading abilities, that must be the proverbial Black Page.

Speaking of which, I hear that Zappa's "Black Page" isn't exactly a cinch, either.

As for myself, Thad Jones' "Cherry Juice" was pretty hairy, some Corigliano piece I played in Wind Symphony was quite painful, and I've always had trouble with the changes to "Seven Steps to Heaven"

As far as f***ed up charts to read, anything by Joseph Schwantner - harmonics & whistling, whispering, rubbing glasses filled with water, etc. Despite all this, his "... and the mountains rising nowhere" gives me serious goosebumps every time.

Taking A Dare:
Composer Ron Nelson has had some stuff recorded by Dallas W S, I think. Does the name ring a bell?

Originally posted by Don Higdon
Taking A Dare:
Composer Ron Nelson has had some stuff recorded by Dallas W S, I think. Does the name ring a bell?
Well, Don .... Don ..... dammit! Your sly name games have me bamboozled! I swear I play DB! I play jazz 2-4 nights a week! I pine away for one-trip status! Why the hell can't I unlock the mysteries of this cheeky change-everyone's-name game! AAAAAGGGHHHH!

Where was I?

OH YEAH - Ron Nelson. It seems that Mr. Nelson has had a pretty strong relationship with the Dallas Wind Symphony over the years. I've played a few of his works in my high school and North Texas wind symphony days - very nice stuff.

Originally posted by Danny Adair
As far as f***ed up charts to read, anything by Joseph Schwantner - harmonics & whistling, whispering, rubbing glasses filled with water, etc. Despite all this, his "... and the mountains rising nowhere" gives me serious goosebumps every time.

I have a CD of Schwantner's music - Evelyn Glennie, Leonard Slatkin and National Symphony Orchestra - great stuff! I really like the Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.

In the UK, they have a competition for "Young Musician of the Year" and the latter stages are televised on the BBC - so one of the recent winners was a percussionist who played this piece in the final and won - competing against pianists, string players etc.playing other, more famous concertos!

It was great to see that contemporary music like this is being taken up and played by young people and that it can be so "vital".

Any arid Dan:
I studied theory of harmony with Ron Nelson. He equated it with 2 years at Eastman. He is the single most profound musical influence in my life. I could go on for hours about how many ways he helped make me a better musician. Friendly, witty, challenging.

The most literally f***ed up charts I've encountered was the book for the 5th Dimension. It was one of those "cold reading" gigs where the band was intact except for the bass chair; they flew me in for the evening. The book was about three inches thick and meant to be read front to back, no worries. They problem was, the charts were so "well used" that there were actually big gaping holes in the paper every 3-4 pages. I believe I got drunk afterwards. Those guys need to hire a librarian.

I was just looking a back at some of the huge number of scrappy bits of paper with Jazz charts, I 've managed to collect and found one with a hole in the middle - but managed to patch it up.

So it reminded me of another category - charts that look fairly simple but are deceptively hard to play! So this one was :

"In the Land of Ephesus" by Joe Lovano.

I just found it really hard to keep that ostinato bass line going in the head and when it is played as a "tag" - something "odd" about the blowing sequence as well....anybody else played this tune?

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
I have a CD of Schwantner's music - Evelyn Glennie, Leonard Slatkin and National Symphony Orchestra - great stuff! I really like the Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.
I have that disc, too. The music seems pretty cool, but I'm usually not much of a fan of narration, and (to my ears) that disc sounds horribly edited. Maybe I'm mistaking or misinterpreting sound events, but it sounds like sections were spliced together very poorly.

I do love Slatkin's work with the St. Louis SO, though - his Barber, Copeland, and Corigliano recordings are phenomenal.

Well the disc was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra)", but it was certainly better seeing the concerto performed on TV with a top London orchestra and the "Young Musician of the year" - I think my enthusiasm stems from that performance more than anything else.

I don't usually listen to the spoken word piece though!

Shostakovich 5th or Tchaikovsky 4th hardest lots of thumb position

Most boring Green Onions 10,000 measures of thump thump thump then one measure of thump thump a fourth higher yuck!

Most difficult to play musical scores in a dark pit when you stand light goes out

Most hosed up gig marching orchestra at a football HS home comming game. Marching bass' and Marching Cellos a real brain storm to say the least

and most anything if you don't practice

Joe