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original compostions
Moral Victory
You
Gotta light the way
When they summon in
The night
You
Gotta break the day
Til eyes blinded find their
Sight
We
Gotta walk the road
In truth never to pretend
We
Gotta let ‘em know
They lead only to
The end
There ain’t no family but family
There ain’t no blood in me
that bleeds for free
You ain’t got nothin
If you ain’t got love
Just knowing
Just flowing
Victory is mine
Don’t
Let em keep you down
They can’t hear that song
Your singing
Don’t
Let ‘em lock you out
They can’t hold the gifts
You bring
Don’t
Listen to the words
When they try to write your
Story
You
Gotta find a way
To be what they’ll never
See
There ain’t no family but family
There ain’t no blood in me
that bleeds for free
You ain’t got nothin
If you ain’t got love
Just knowing
Just flowing
Victory is mine
Begin Again
The title of this tune is drawn from the meditation tradition. In the seated practice (and in every other part of life) one of our main challenges is to bring our attention back to what is actually happening. You can hear that reflected in the figure that starts each phrase. The interaction between the grounding A♭ → B♭figure and the melody phrases symbolize the fact that as the mind drifts further and further from the present, we must begin again more frequently and with more sincerity. Solo trombone version here.
Bad News was first tune I composed after our first collaboration with the Richmond Symphony. Writing for brass band plus full orchestra certainly expanded the possibilities in terms of what No BS! Brass could explore on our own.
Lance used to have a little gong as part of his drum setup and would often play a Go-Go groove on it during sound check. That groove got stuck in my head and while that sound didn’t make it into the final recording, I created the whole tune around it. The trombones simulate what could be a Go-Go bell pattern or keyboard ostinato while the tuba, trumpets and saxophone layer in their melodies and countermelodies. After a call and response between trumpets and trombones in the bridge we move onto the chorus, with a theme that would be right at home in a dystopian game show. David and I enjoy trading solos on this one before a recap and drum solo coda.
Reggie’s brilliant direction of the music video for this tune depicts a restaurant’s lunch rush as the Zombie Apocalypse. Like all good zombie flicks, the most important plot line in the video depicts how the non-zombie humans treat each other in the face of disaster.
Undying is the title track from our latest album. The lyrics and vibe are inspired by N.K. Jemisin’s brilliant sci-fi work, The Broken Earth Trilogy. Without giving too much away, the books landed for me as a dialogue between people and their environment, a seeking for understanding with forces beyond understanding. Between the time of the tune’s writing and its recording, my dad, also a trombonist and music teacher, fell ill and passed away. This music is my dialogue with forces beyond my control, sung beautifully by Samantha Reed.
Ashes dust to dust
Sun is low shadows long
Twilight rising up
Silent song
Cold wind through the trees
Through the limbs nothing sings
Leaves spread on the ground
Broken wings
Let in the rain and let it clarify
The path we’re taking
Let in the light and let it
Color in the dream of waking
Tell ‘em that you are the undying
Tell ‘em that you’re never done trying
Tell ‘em that your flag is still flying
That you’re gonna heal the world
Gaia!
Gaia!
Gaia!
Gaia!
Stillness on the sea
Not a wave to the sand
Feeling glass to glass
Under hand
Lightning, split the sky
Line between light and dark
Thunder, sing the song
Of the spark
Let in the rain and let it clarify
The path we’re taking
Let in the light and let it
Color in the dream of waking
Tell ‘em that you are the undying
Tell ‘em that you’re never done trying
Tell ‘em that your flag is still flying
That you’re gonna heal the world
Gaia!
Gaia!
Gaia!
Gaia!
Be a fighter
Fire lighter
Keep it burning, burning brighter
Be a healer
A revealer
World is turning, turning
Feel her
Gaia!
Gaia!
Gaia!
Gaia!
Runaround is a fairly straightforward ode to Allen Toussaint/The Meters/Lee Dorsey/Betty Harris. Accordingly, you’ll hear lots of la-do and mi and me. Unison riffs throughout with trumpet stabs. I seem to work a three over four passage into almost all of my tunes (whatcha gon’ do?) Samantha Reed does a stellar job of singing this one now and we’re doing it with a new intro and working up some lines from my orchestral arrangement.
Act Like You Know
At the time I was writing this one, I was listening to a lot of Mos Def/Talib Kweli. Sometimes it’s cool to open with the chorus! For the verses I wanted to experiment with using the bones and tuba in a hocket thing. Marcus Tenney lays down some blistering bars on this track.
The verses are followed by a shout chorus that echoes the trading vocals from the top of the tune. One again we have a three over four idea emerging. At the end of the shout, you’ll hear the trumpets holding a Bb major triad while the bones and tuba answer with an E major triad.
After Lance Koehler’s thundering drum solo, you’ll hear some fragments of the shout and then a passage that brings back the polychord idea but in a rhythmic setting of 4/4 then 3/4 instead of three over four. I was looking for a The Dillinger Escape Plan vibe to close it out. David Hood ices the cake with some shredding on the last pass.
What Now
The A section of this one is really a second coming of Reggie Pace Reggie Pace’s tune Jalapeños On The Side with its three bar bass line and A minor melody that emphasizes D natural. There’s a symbolism to cyclical nature to the melody and the rhetorical question of the title. You’ll also hear one of my favorite harmonic relationships, i - IV (IV6 in this case). Counter melody enters on the second time through. In the words of Trey Pollard, “make the counter melody invertible just in case.
The B section takes us on a root motion journey borrowed from “Son of a Preacher Man.” I also borrowed the rhythmic idea from an old Ombak tune, alternating between and-one-and / one-and-2. I love the sense of urgency that Lance Koehler creates on the hats here. The long notes in the trombone foreshadow what’s to come in the post-chorus. We arrive in D minor for the chorus.
The melody in the chorus uses pretty much the same set of notes as the A section but recontextualized in D minor.
The post-chorus is indirectly inspired by Ligeti’s Bagatelles and uses a repeating set of three notes. There’s a bit of a half-step forward, whole-step back feeling.
For the solo, we just added some space in between each part of the bass/bone figure as well as some group clapping. I’ve always found it challenging to improvise over this tune.
Towards the end of the tune we find David Hood shredding, Lance Koehler smashing and the three note figure harmonized in parallel major triads for ray of light.
Get Slow
Here’s a pretty straightforward pop tune.
This one’s a great example of a dialectic creative process. Start with one idea and ask yourself “what is the opposite of that?” and/or “where is the space?”
The lyrical content of the verses is certainly inspired by Dr. John’s “Right Place Wrong Time.” Call and response between bones and vocal. I originally had the bones and voice in unison and I vividly remember the moment when someone in the band suggested what it is now. On the second time through we add some Lance Koehler vocal harmony and a trumpet unison background.
I guess you could call that little motif between sections a ‘pivot melody modulation.’ Who knows? If I were to do it all over again, I’d avoid the Db until we reached the new section.
For the B section, the call and response roles are reversed and now placed on the voice and trumpet. We switch between Db and Eb roots every two bars but there’s a sneaky third trombone moving part that outlines the following...
Db: me me mi mi fa fa mi mi
Eb: mi mi fa fa fi fi fa fa
It was Stefan’s idea to have the tuba jump octaves on his figure. I like that this whole section sounds very clear but that there is greater complexity evident when you listen closely.
At the chorus the trumpets and voice finally reach rhythmic unison with each other. The bones borrow a bit of the trumpet background figure from the A section but in harmony.
After another verse / pre-chorus / chorus, we arrive a fun group solo between John Hulley, David Hood and Taylor Barnett with a progressively harmonized background riff.
Lance Koehler takes us home while we tag the last piece of the chorus. Trumpets and bones/tuba are in contrary motion. I guess you could say that this section creates a three over four feeling. I can’t seem to escape it.
Surprise! The last chord has a #11.