Sympho: Tweetheart 1
May 19, 2010
| Large Ensemble
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I'm currently flying over the Midwest in a heap of metal... It still amazes me that these things work. I'm headed to New York for this year's Sympho concert; it's my third year working with Paul Haas and SymphoNYC and I'm thrilled to be trying out some new things. The concert explores a life of love—love of all sorts. Love of a mother, a lover, of country, of loss, of love itself... Furthermore we asked our audience to submit the best love songs of all time and Grayson Sanders, Wynne Bennett and I wrote arrangements of those bits of gushy wonderfulness.
For my part, I chose to arrange At Last; you know, the Etta James tune that Beyonce performed at our president's inauguration, and Christina Aguilera performed regularly during one of her tours. That song that gets hollered through a Martini laden mic at karaoke — just about every torch singer on the planet has done it. It's one of those tunes that everyone knows, even if they don't know: they know. And that sort of cultural saturation is the beauty of the "standard." We've all got some emotional history with the song, and it makes for a richer, more saturated, communal experience.
In my years as a jazz pianist I'm sure I've played this tune hundreds of times and it's been requested three times that. And for that reason, I tried to avoid all the pitfalls associated with well known material. I can count on the audience singing along, or the mental vinyl spinning with the original recording. So I didn't want to obscure the melody. And due to the fact that it is nestled between the quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto and an amazing aria by Monteverdi, it seemed most fitting to take advantage of it's placement. And so, it became a mashup of sorts. I ended up quoting Verdi's quartet throughout the piece, as a kind of memory that forces it's way into the sentiment. This is all achieved through some laptop sampling and creative pitch shifting. When the bridge hits, the arrangement weasels it's way out of the Verdi and the final recap of the tune is just plain big: With the classic 12/8 piano riff a la 1950 played by the winds and the strings arpeggiating their way to the end.
For my part, I chose to arrange At Last; you know, the Etta James tune that Beyonce performed at our president's inauguration, and Christina Aguilera performed regularly during one of her tours. That song that gets hollered through a Martini laden mic at karaoke — just about every torch singer on the planet has done it. It's one of those tunes that everyone knows, even if they don't know: they know. And that sort of cultural saturation is the beauty of the "standard." We've all got some emotional history with the song, and it makes for a richer, more saturated, communal experience.
In my years as a jazz pianist I'm sure I've played this tune hundreds of times and it's been requested three times that. And for that reason, I tried to avoid all the pitfalls associated with well known material. I can count on the audience singing along, or the mental vinyl spinning with the original recording. So I didn't want to obscure the melody. And due to the fact that it is nestled between the quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto and an amazing aria by Monteverdi, it seemed most fitting to take advantage of it's placement. And so, it became a mashup of sorts. I ended up quoting Verdi's quartet throughout the piece, as a kind of memory that forces it's way into the sentiment. This is all achieved through some laptop sampling and creative pitch shifting. When the bridge hits, the arrangement weasels it's way out of the Verdi and the final recap of the tune is just plain big: With the classic 12/8 piano riff a la 1950 played by the winds and the strings arpeggiating their way to the end.