Me and Ornette (sort of) at the Festival of New Trumpet Music on January 14th

Next week on January 14th at 9pm, three composers from Pulse (myself, Darcy James Argue, and JC Sanford) will be featured on a concert at the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) at the Abrons Art Center 466 Grand Street in New York City. Tickets can be purchased at the FONT website or at the door.

The Festival of New Trumpet Music, which was co-founded by the great trumpeter/composer Dave Douglas, actually begins the night before on January 13th with a tribute and benefit celebrating the life and career of famed trumpeter Wilmer Wise. Wilmer has lead a diverse and interesting career, straddling the worlds of jazz, contemporary classical, and Broadway. Working with such musical illuminati as Steve Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, and Leopold Stokowski among many others, he was often one of the few (if most of the time, the only) African-American musician in many of the ensembles and symphony orchestras he performed in during the 1960s and 1970s. 

The January 14th concert is really in three parts: At 6:30pm Anti-Social Music, Inc. presents a series of world premieres; at 7:30pm is a performance of the brass music by the incredible composer Charles Wuorinen performed by the New York Trumpet Ensemble and the Urban Brass Quintet, which will be conducted by the composer himself; then at 9pm Wilmer Wise reprises his role as trumpet soloist in Ornette Coleman's rarely performed chamber work, The Sacred Mind of Johnny Dolphin. Wilmer performed on the premiere in 1984 and trumpeter Lew Soloff played on the last known performance at Carnegie Hall in 1987. Both Wilmer and Lew will be tag-teaming the solo trumpet part in The Sacred Mind of Johnny Dolphin for the January 14th concert. Also featured will be Gerald Cleaver (drums), Warren Smith (percussion), Meg Okura and Scott Tixier (violins), Judith Insell (viola), and Will Martina (cello). To round out the 9pm part of the concert, Dave Douglas commissioned three composers from Pulse (myself, Darcy James Argue, and JC Sanford) to arrange some of Ornette Coleman's music for the ensemble with soloists Lew Soloff and Taylor Ho Bynum.

The composition I wrote, featuring both Lew and Taylor, is called "Memory of Red Orange Laid out in Still Waves" and is a transmutation and refraction of the beautiful "Kathelin Gray" from the Ornette Coleman/Pat Metheny 1986 album Song X. My title comes from a line in Edward P. Jones's sobering book, The Known World which, while a work of fiction, was based upon the true incidents of African-Americans owning slaves during the 19th century. Darcy's arrangement, featuring Taylor as soloist, is the opening theme from Ornette's Skies of America from the 1972 orchestral album of the same name, while JC with Lew, will tackle "Peace" from the vestigial 1959 album The Shape of Jazz to Come in his composition, the eponymously titled "Lew's Peace". 

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 7:51 AM

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