After some nudging from friends in and outside of the vocal jazz community, we've decided to offer a new product that can serve as a fun diversion for people who love vocal jazz and want to have a way of participating in the art form while the world is coping with this awful Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.
Our brand new "Iso Packs" have launched for the following charts (and more to be added this month):
Baby Brand New Brave (SSAA) Brave (SSATB) Deedles' Blues Devil May Care Everybody Wants To Rule the World Feelin' Good Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (SSATB) Hanging On Holocene I Can't Make You Love Me I Remember I'll Be Seeing You I'm Old Fashioned It's Alright With Me Kiss From a Rose Lace Skull Love Shack Nice 'n' Easy Painted on Canvas Radio Song Rainy Days and Mondays Ready, Aim, Fire Roller Coaster Rolling in the Deep Safe and Sound Sing to the Moon Soul With a Capital "S" Still Fighting It The Gospel of John Hurt The Luckiest (SATB) The Song is You Time After Time (SATB) What a Fool Believes When You Say Nothing At All Wish You With Me You Must Believe In Spring
Zemabia - Rhythm Tracks added for both voicings (3/24/20)
Old Folks At Home - Minus-One Tracks added (3/31/20)
I've been working this month to bring back two formerly available popular charts, and I've also added a new voicing for a long-time favorite, as you'll see below. Additionally, I've created Vocal Part Tracks, Minus-One Tracks and improved demos and Rhythm Tracks for several charts...here's the recent change log:
Centerpiece - NEW SATB VOICING! - Added Digital Sheet Music Pack, Vocal Part Tracks, Minus-One Tracks and Rhythm Track (2/11/20)
Almost Like Being in Love - Slight chart revision, demo revision, Multi-Tempo Vocal Part Tracks added, Minus-One Tracks added, new Rhythm Track (2/6/20)
I recently realized that the demo and Vocal Part Tracks for my chart on "Almost Like Being in Love" were very outdated, and that I actually had some drum tracks and a soprano 1 track sung by Julia that I had plain forgotten to use in a remix! Yikes...
So, knowing that I was going to be reuploading everything anyway, I took the opportunity to consider what else I could do to make the chart and audio better and more effective for my directors using it with their groups. And the product of this effort and consideration is a brand new type of Vocal Part Tracks set that I'll be rolling out on all up-tempo charts over the coming weeks.
Multi-Tempo Vocal Part Tracks This special collection of part tracks contains several different audio files to help your students learn this challenging chart. All tracks have been tuned and edited to be sure that the notes and rhythms are accurate. The slow-down process creates some occasionally ”digital” sounds, but these tracks should get the job done (and honestly, the process of re-singing all of these demos at two different tempi is...well...preventative).
Contained within this special tracks set are the following:
1. Slow-tempo (50% speed) Vocal Part Tracks (with no accompaniment, and the solo section removed)
2. Medium-tempo (75% speed) Vocal Part Tracks (with no accompaniment)
3. Full-tempo Vocal Part Tracks (with soft rhythm section accompaniment for reference)
4. A mix of all vocals only (without rhythm section) at the slow tempo
5. Medium-tempo full demo with no solo included, to allow for scatting practice at the 75% speed.
These tracks are highly practical in the way they slow down bebop lines and help the singers get the parts up to speed! I'll post updates when more of these Multi-Tempo Vocal Part Tracks are available on other tunes, but for now, I'm featuring the new and improved Almost Like Being in Love chart, because it still makes a great opener or closer, and is now easier to put together than ever.
There are a number of reasons why a particular title may have difficult-to-obtain license, or why it may be impractical to re-license, but the arrangements in my new "Vault Collection" are all now available for purchase at SheetMusicPlus.com.
I'm happy to make these titles available for purchase through this vendor, which is essentially Hal Leonard's way of allowing any arranger to easily publish his or her arrangements of copyrighted songs without a hassle (albeit with a very small royalty for the arranger).
I feel, though, that I must differentiate these titles from my own main catalog selections in two key ways: First, due to SheetMusicPlus regulations, the sales of Part Tracks, Rhythm Tracks and Minus-One Tracks isn't currently allowed (although I'm working on it at the moment...stay tuned, because there might be a breakthough here) with titles listed with them and they only allow 30-second demo clips on their website (which is why I make the full demos available below).
Secondly, some of these titles were written early in my arranging career, at a time when I didn't have the same standards as I do now for notation and demo recording quality, so please adjust your expectations accordingly! There are, of course, more recent titles like "Blue Light, Red Light", "It's You or No One", "My Foolish Heart", "Twelfth of Never", "Whisper Your Name" and a few others for which I'm happy that you'll be seeing the kind of clear notation (and well-recorded demo) of which I would be proud today.
In any case, thank you for checking out this collection, and for some, you may enjoy a bit of nostalgia as you listen to the demos on these titles from my arranging and publishing past!
The vocal jazz ensemble world is a small one, to be sure. Our little awesome niche in the vast musical world has been incredibly fulfilling to me for a number of reasons, but one of those has been that...you know...it really is possible to meet your heroes and heroines. Because of my work in vocal jazz over the years, I even get to drop Pat Metheny's name every once in a while, and even if I never have another gig again with Ben Folds, his name will likely be in my bio forever. And from working with Ben, I got to write some horn parts for Sara Bareilles and Julia and I (and some of my UNC students) got to sing backgrounds for her at the Kennedy Center. Pretty stinkin' cool.
The New York Voices need absolutely ZERO introduction to anyone who has even passed by a vocal jazz ensemble performance (maybe an exaggeration?), and so, clearly, anyone who has dedicated their entire life to the sub-sub-sub-genre considers them to be the modern-day gold standard for the art form, particularly as it relates to the type of music sung by jazz choirs/vocal jazz ensembles in schools in the US and Canada. Each New York Voice, individually, has released beautiful solo records and worked in a number of educational and artistic contexts, building their own profiles to seriously respectable statures while still being incredibly approachable, down-to-Earth, wonderful human beings. Lauren Kinhan, Kim Nazarian and Peter Eldridge were all highly visible and active at this January's Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans. A chart I wrote for Fairview High School on Lauren's "I Saw Love Today" was premiered by their super-talented "Age of Guinevere", directed by Janice Vlachos, and Lauren sang the lead line with them, creating a now hard-wired memory for everyone in attendance, but especially those of us who were involved (including Julia, who sang all the parts on the demo, which you will get to hear in May!).
My VoicesBeyond Collection is growing each year, as I seek out great charts written by fantastic writers, some of whom you likely won't know yet, and some of whom are prolific enough to be featured quite often (David von Kampen ring a bell?). I'm also proud of our collections of arrangements performed by Groove For Thought (largely written by Kelly Kunz) and Accent, both of which grew a little at the start of the new year with Kelly's long-awaited "Spain" chart, James Rose's "Honor, Honor" and Simon Åkesson's "Keep the Faith."
But if I can be forgiven for being just a little bit giddy about a new chart addition...it's the fact that we're now publishing a new arrangement by Peter Eldridge of his drop-dead gorgeous song (co-written with Cliff Goldmacher) "Wish You With Me," which he performs with the great Becca Stevens on Disappearing Day. When we started working on publishing it and Julia and I were recording the demo, I told Peter that I'm pretty sure this one is going to be a big hit in the vocal jazz scene...maybe along the lines of Pentatonix's "Run To You" (comp. Ben Bram) that's still making the rounds at festivals in the US and Canada. PTX gave that chart away for free on their site, so maaaybe I'm exaggerating with my expectations a bit, but the chart will sing really easily, is only accompanied by piano (making it easy to assemble) and is utterly, amazingly gorgeous.
Just give it a listen...seriously.
It's an honor to be able to work with one of my long-time heroes and to be able to call him a friend as well. And I promise that this won't be our last collaboration (actually, I'm sure of it, as I wrote a chart for Sac State on his "Warm December" that will come out in May...but, like...other neat and fun things coming down the pike as well).
