Blog Return: "Playing it Cool"

Hello Blog readers! It’s been five years since I uploaded anything on here but I’d like to start posting more regularly. This will be a casual home for all sorts of random music related things happening in my life. That being said I’d like to dive into a recent project and gig I did in order to give a glimpse into my life of drumming/writing work.

The US Army Field Band's "Jazz Ambassadors"

The Call

I recently moved to the DMV area with my family after winning a job with the US Army Field Band’s Jazz Ambassadors (which I may discuss in another post). I had been in town for a couple months and played a corporate event with a party band and an informal jazz show at a wine bar. I hadn’t had a chance to play a formal show at any of the established clubs, but that opportunity came when I got a call from long-time DC area trombonist/vocalist/band leader Eric Felten. Eric had seen my website and asked if I could play drums for an upcoming show at Blues Alley (July 5th 2026) as well as help with some copy-work transposing some French horn parts into alto sax parts.

• 

• 

• 

Eric's Band Artwork Eric Williams Quartet Gig Party Band Gig

The Material

The show was with Eric Felten’s “Dek-tette” inspired by Marty Paich’s band of the same name and their collaborations with Mel Torme, Fred Astaire and Ella Fitzgerald. I’ve listened a lot to that band and love their swingin’ but relaxed cool jazz style. Marty’s band consisted of a traditional brass quintet plus 3 saxes and rhythm section. So:

Alto Sax

Tenor Sax

Bari Sax

Trumpet 1

Trumpet 2

French Horn

Trombone

Tuba

Piano

Bass

Drums

This instrumentation gave it a noticeably “cool jazz” “jazz-classical” sound pioneered by Miles Davis and Gil Evans on “Birth of the Cool”. I’ll have to write an article some other time on one of my favorite albums, the critically underrated “New Bottle Old Wine” by Gil Evans. The recordings Marty made with this band are partly what inspired me to start my own “Mini Big Band”. (Check out our album here). This instrumentation can present some challenges though. While the Tuba parts can be easily played on bass trombone, or covered by a versatile trombonist doubling, the French horn parts are a different story. In any city the list of French horn players comfortable in a jazz setting is going to be very small, especially improvising, and if you’re not playing exclusively Marty Paich charts, almost nothing else is going to use French horn in its instrumentation. Some of the Paich charts available from eJazzlines.com have an optional part that covers the French horn using a 3rd trumpet or 3rd trombone. Neither of these are ideal because the parts lay very low on the trumpet and having 3 trombones in a reduced ensemble is not likely. Due to this and having a fair amount of material in the book for 4 saxes + 4 brass, Eric chose to cover the French horn parts with sax. This has its own drawbacks like the fact that if the original arrangement voices all five brass together on their own, then the updated version will have a random saxophone in the middle of that voicing. I still think this is the best compromise.

• 

• 

Transposing

The job was pretty straightforward. I would re-create the French horn part in my music notation software, and then copy and paste the notes into an alto sax part in order to change the pitches automatically to the correct transposition. It’s important that the rehearsal letters, measure numbers, and dynamics line up with the rest of the parts so that it can be easily sightread without rehearsal. I’m still unfortunately using the discontinued notation software “Finale”. I’ve purchased “Dorico” but I’m struggling to learn it and end up getting frustrated and coming back to Finale. That’s a story/battle for another day. While working on this project I was reminded how important it is for each page of music to have the proper information on it. If you receive pictures of several parts out of order, it can be difficult to tell what’s what if there isn’t a page number, instrument name, and song title on every page. Check out Scoring Notes’ article on this subject. (Their website is a great resource). A lot of the materials I was working from came from the early 2000’s when accomplished writers/arrangers were still adapting to music notation software like finale as opposed to handwriting charts. Funnily enough, many of these writers produced immaculate hand-written sheet music, but when they switched to digital many things didn’t look right or were missing. I always try my best to make sure my work is absolutely perfect because you never know where it could end up down the road. If you don’t put the proper header information on your charts now you might think it’s not a big deal, but it could cause a headache in 30 years for someone who’s not even born yet!

• 

• 

Every Page Needs Info!

During the transposing process I realized that many of the French horn parts still lay low on the alto sax and may work better on the tenor sax. I decided to use a trick I’ve used in my own band. I would print an alto sax version on the front of the pages, and then a tenor sax version on the backside. You have to do a little pdf re-arranging magic to make this work when printing/taping. For example you would combine both parts into one PDF and then print in this order: alto pg 1, tenor pg 5, alto pg 2, tenor pg 4, alto pg 3, tenor pg 3, alto pg 4, tenor pg 2, alto pg 5, tenor page 1. This makes the chart more adaptable in the future depending on what instruments the fourth saxophonist brings to the gig.

Our second baby ended up coming earlier than we expected so I ran out of time on the last 3 charts and had my buddy DJ Rice help me with them. Because we’re both finale users I just sent him my template and looked it over when he was done. Here’s a picture of all 8 parts printed:

Job Completed. Very Satisfying.

I also adapted a chart I did in the past for my band. A reduction of Bill Holman’s “After You’ve Gone” written for the Terry Gibbs Dream Band. Terry Gibbs had a high energy swingin’ band on the west coast featuring a young Mel Lewis. In recent years there’s been at least 6 volumes of live recordings released of them and it’s a really great showcase of Mel’s earlier playing style before moving to NY. Don’t ever say Mel didn’t have chops! A lot of Bill’s material reduces well to a smaller ensemble.

• 

• 

That's a tight fit!

I printed and taped all the parts which I also have strong opinions about... that’ll be another article. All that was left was the gig!

The Gig

Blues Alley is a historic jazz supper club in the capitol region. It’s known as “the house Dizzy built” due to Dizzy Gillespie playing there in the 70’s and helping popularize the venue. They claim on their website to be the oldest continuously running jazz supper club in the country.

My Blue Sparkle 60's Gretsch Drums (12-14-20+Snare)

I got to the club really early because I wanted to use my own drums and I didn’t know what the parking/traffic situation was like. I was excited to try out my new tama classic cymbal stands. It was definitely more intimate than what I expected from seeing the club on video. After setting up I went right around the corner and got the 2 slices + beer combo at Andy’s Pizza. It was reallygood!

My Favorite!

The band was an incredible line-up of almost all military band personnel, mostly retired. I got to meet and play with a lot of great musicians including pianist Tony Nalker who told me he actually produced the Army Blues video I linked earlier. My charts were read down with no issue which is exactly what I had hoped for. The first show was a packed house. Even though it’s a small space they can apparently fit 100+ guests. We had a short soundcheck/rehearsal but most of the gig was sight-reading as is common with big band gigs. Along with the cool jazz stuff there were also some patriotic/civic selections to celebrate America 250. We played a jazzy rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the audience was very pleased to hear Eric sing “I’m Just a Bill” from Schoolhouse Rock after he shared a humorous story about Jack Sheldon. We also played a couple Duke Ellington pieces. Duke was born in DC and his early bands performed under the name “The Washingtonians”.

View from the bar.

The AC unfortunately wasn’t working that night and I got super sweaty. Thankfully we weren’t in suits. I accidentally left my sunglasses hanging from my collar so I probably looked too cool for school the whole time.

View from the cockpit.

Wrap up

Overall it was a fun show and a really cool venue. Definitely check it out if you live nearby or are visiting. Lots of big name jazz artists come through. Eric’s band plays there a few times a year including a yearly Ellington nutcracker Christmas concert. I hope to bring my mini big band to Blues Alley in the future. Let me know and let them know if that’s something you’d be interested in.

Our First Gig.

I’d like to give a special thanks to my wife Amanda who stayed home with our 16 month old and 2 week old so I could play the show.

Shoot me an email if you’d like to be added to my mailing list to be kept up to date on all the happenings, and let me know in the comments what other topics you’d like to see a post about. All questions/disagreements are welcome! I hope to post more regularly in the future.