EJam-Bourrée was written in February of 2015 for the Eastern Standard Trio and is scored for horn, tuba, electric Piano, and percussion. The genesis of the piece came from a rather terrible musical pun I thought of that I had put in a sketchbook of ideas dating back to the summer of 2012.
A pure expression of my tendencies towards polystylism in my music, this composition fuses together a repetitive jam figure first heard in the electric piano and the musical style of the French Baroque dance.
The modal harmonic vocabulary of the jam is derivative of jazz/funk/fusion music. The Bouree makes uses of the sonic trademarks of Renaissance and Baroque music; notably the Passamezzo Antico and the Andalusian Cadence (also modal).
As the piece progresses the jam figure becomes less dominant, and the bourree becomes the dominant style. Then as the piece fades away the jam takes over again. With lots of overlap in style and harmonic languages.
This piece, too me, is very special and important in my canon of over 100 works. Not only because it is written for such immensely talents musicians not because it is for my former teachers, but because this piece took one night to write. Often as a composer you struggle with finding that starting point, that 'inspiration.'
Seldom is a piece easy to pull out of one's mind but occasionally (in my experiences) the music just appears! So "Jam-Bourrée" is very special to me, for a multitude of reasons.
Featured on their debut album
EASTERN STANDARD RECORDING 'JAM-BOURREE'
A pure expression of my tendencies towards polystylism in my music, this composition fuses together a repetitive jam figure first heard in the electric piano and the musical style of the French Baroque dance.
The modal harmonic vocabulary of the jam is derivative of jazz/funk/fusion music. The Bouree makes uses of the sonic trademarks of Renaissance and Baroque music; notably the Passamezzo Antico and the Andalusian Cadence (also modal).
As the piece progresses the jam figure becomes less dominant, and the bourree becomes the dominant style. Then as the piece fades away the jam takes over again. With lots of overlap in style and harmonic languages.
This piece, too me, is very special and important in my canon of over 100 works. Not only because it is written for such immensely talents musicians not because it is for my former teachers, but because this piece took one night to write. Often as a composer you struggle with finding that starting point, that 'inspiration.'
Seldom is a piece easy to pull out of one's mind but occasionally (in my experiences) the music just appears! So "Jam-Bourrée" is very special to me, for a multitude of reasons.
Featured on their debut album
EASTERN STANDARD RECORDING 'JAM-BOURREE'
