paich
The Jazz Protagonists have long been fans of the jazz arranger Marty Paich. He wrote for Ella Fitzgerald, Art Pepper, Sammy Davis Jr, and Mel Torme, among others, and was known for his offbeat, agile brass charts. In particular, he quoted liberally and cleverly from bop masterpieces and pop culture, as well as throwing in obscure in-crowd references with a jazzy wink.
For a couple of years now, we've been talking about doing, as one of our weekly Protagonists Jazz Parties on KRTU, a tribute to Paich. Well, the time came last week. We decided to get together a dektet, a version of the rumbly small-big-band sound Miles Davis made popular with Birth Of The Cool. This includes, oddly, a French horn and a tuba. Darren made calls (Barry: "Where can we find a jazz French-hornist?" Darren: "No problem"), and I spent the better part of several days churning out charts. From eight o'clock Thursday morning to one o'clock Monday night I got a total of fifteen hours' sleep. Ah, but it was worth it! We got the guys together and had a really great time.
Give it a listen, and enjoy the Paich-ishness of it all. We did three songs that were pretty faithful renderings of charts that he wrote for Sammy Davis Jr and Mel Torme, but with my own tweaking here and there. And then we did our usual intro and outro tunes, the original compositions "Protag Blues" (by me) and "50-50" (by Darren), but with a Paichy treatment. I had some fun with them, giving the dektet crazy quotes from Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, as well as Schoolhouse Rock (the killer brass lick from "Conjunction Junction"), Styx (the killer brass lick from "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned"), Rush (you'll have to keep your ears open for this one), Deep Purple ("Smoke On The Water"), and more.
Enjoy our Party With Marty.
For a couple of years now, we've been talking about doing, as one of our weekly Protagonists Jazz Parties on KRTU, a tribute to Paich. Well, the time came last week. We decided to get together a dektet, a version of the rumbly small-big-band sound Miles Davis made popular with Birth Of The Cool. This includes, oddly, a French horn and a tuba. Darren made calls (Barry: "Where can we find a jazz French-hornist?" Darren: "No problem"), and I spent the better part of several days churning out charts. From eight o'clock Thursday morning to one o'clock Monday night I got a total of fifteen hours' sleep. Ah, but it was worth it! We got the guys together and had a really great time.
Give it a listen, and enjoy the Paich-ishness of it all. We did three songs that were pretty faithful renderings of charts that he wrote for Sammy Davis Jr and Mel Torme, but with my own tweaking here and there. And then we did our usual intro and outro tunes, the original compositions "Protag Blues" (by me) and "50-50" (by Darren), but with a Paichy treatment. I had some fun with them, giving the dektet crazy quotes from Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, as well as Schoolhouse Rock (the killer brass lick from "Conjunction Junction"), Styx (the killer brass lick from "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned"), Rush (you'll have to keep your ears open for this one), Deep Purple ("Smoke On The Water"), and more.
Enjoy our Party With Marty.
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