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April Community Recording Project
This project is completed! Here is the song we recorded:
Here is the project page we used:
Hello!
This month, Community Band is learning & recording "Portrait of Mahalia Jackson", a piece from the "New Orleans Suite" composed by Duke Ellington & recorded in 1970. It is a celebratory, double-blues tribute to the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who had sung with the Ellington band on a few occasions.
You are invited to participate in this recording project! Musicians are encouraged to learn the song on any instrument & submit a recording to be mixed into the community recording.
Email me at loganhone@gmail.com to tell me you want to play & I will get you sheet music or help you come up with a part to play.
There will be 2 Zoom meetings for this project. If you can't make one or both of the meetings, you can still submit a recording!
April 7: an introduction to the month’s song & a quick rehearsal (6-6:45pm)
April 21: listening session and reflection (6-6:30pm)
We are going to make our own arrangement that will highlight the skills of each musician. Please email me to let me know what instrument you are going to play & I will get you a part that matches your instrument and skill-level. Email me at loganhone@gmail.com
Here is the play-along track:
We are making our recording by playing along with the original Ellington recording. You can play along with that, or I made 2 counting conductor tracks.
Counting track version 1: I count every beat and call out the rehearsal markers (recommended for players with less experience playing in a band)
2 devices will be needed: one for listening *with headphones on* and one for recording
Record yourself playing along to the playalong track with your voice memo recorder or any available recording device.
Don't worry about the sound quality, this is just for fun and to remotely jam together as a community band!
1. Press record on your recorder.
2. Press play on the play-along track, and play along. *Make sure to wear headphones*
3. Email your recording to loganhone@gmail.com by April 18
So why play this piece?
This song is beautiful, spirited, and moving. It is also really cool & interesting for a few nerdy musical reasons:
-The tune consists of 2 wild 12-bar blues progressions: the A sections are a gospel-tinged G blues while the B sections are a spooky E minor blues. The form is: Piano intro, A, A, B, A, B, A, A, coda
Chord progressions of the A & B sections:
-The song starts with a fanfare piano intro, and then rides on a 12/8 gospel groove with spirited bass playing by Joe Benjamin. The horn section sings thick & long chords as a backing choir to a sincere flute solo & other blues-filled improvisations.
-It features the killer flute playing of Norris Turney, the first flute playing to be heard in any of Duke Ellington's bands (Ellington had been going strong since the 1920's)! The melody is played on the first 3 A sections, with the 3rd time containing more embellishments. Later in the tune, Norris plays a ripping flute solo over the last A section followed by a brief coda where the first 2 measures of the A melody are played in the higher register before cascading down a waterfall of notes to a final moment of plucked bass.
Here's the flute melody on the first two A sections:
-Clarinet (Russell Proscope I think) and trumpet (Cootie Williams I think) both play very low-key solos/improvisations toward the beginning of the piece that support the flute and then kind of accompany the long ensemble chords of the bridge. Whoa!
-One thing that totally excites me about this piece is that most of the ensemble plays half note chords together the entire tune, supporting the different soloists. Different instrument sections come in and out, thickening & thinning the sound. This is a very simple & engaging orchestration decision. Of all the winds, only the flute & tenor sax have unique melodic parts (excluding the improvised solos).
This chart shows the different layers of each section:
-That unique tenor sax melody starts with a long medium-high note that just soars with the ensemble during the A sections. Listen for it, it's great!
Tenor A section melody:
If you have any more observations about this song that you would like to add to this list, let me know!
A couple Mahalia Jackson songs to check out:
"Move On Up a Little Higher"
Singing at church with Martin Luther King Jr. preaching:
"How I Got Over"
Mahalia Jackson singing "Come Sunday" with Duke Ellington:
Tips on how to learn a piece of music:
1. Download sheet music for your instrument
2. Listen to the song. Buy it or download it if possible, add it to a playlist, favorite it on Youtube, however you access and listen to music, try to put it there. Listening is THE KEY to learning music. Music is all about learning what things sound like and then learning how to produce those sounds. Listening is everything!
3. Look through the piece and make sure you know what all the notes are. If there are some you aren't sure about, use a sheet music reference to determine what they are.
4. Listen to the play-along track/video 3 times while reading along with the music. Do not play your instrument yet.
5. Try to play the song with your instrument by yourself. Play it with your metronome at a slow tempo (60bpm is usually a good place to start to see if you can then speed up or need to slow down further)
6. When you make a mistake, always take a slower look at that spot. Always slow down to understand and learn music.
7. We have to fully understand what we are reading. Sometimes that means we need to stop the metronome and look closely at something to figure out what it is. It's often a good idea to make markings & make notes on the sheet music to help remind yourself of what something on the page is.
8. Gradually start trying to play-along with the recording. Can you play through the whole thing with relatively few mistakes? Remember that perfection isn't everything!! It's okay to make a few mistakes. Except always make sure to take notice of what your mistakes are -- often times, you will find yourself making the same mistake in the same spot each time you play a piece. With those spots, you need to take a close look at them: 1. make sure you understand what all the notes, rhythms are. 2. Slow it down and make sure you can play it at a slow tempo. 3. If you can play it at a slow tempo, gradually increase the tempo until you can play it at the normal speed. 4. Remember to put the passage in context, beginning a measure beforehand for example.
