Writing for younger ensembles is something that I’ve been meaning to do more of for a long time, but only recently got around to. This is the third big band chart I’ve written in the past couple of months for middle school big bands. As I know so many middle school band directors in my area I’ve been writing these charts for their student bands. This latest chart is a bossa nova for the Northview Middle School Jazz Band, in Hickory, NC. David Wortman, their director, frequently plays sax with the Asheville Jazz Orchestra. I call this piece Nogueira Amarga. The title is a puzzle. Your hint is it’s Portuguese and it sort of relates to who I composed it for. Brownie points for the first person to guess correctly in the comments. Here’s a MIDI realization.
Like I did with my earlier two middle school big band charts, I left the solo section without a “placeholder” solo so that the students could use the MIDI playback as a practice track and improvise over it. Click here if you want to download it.
This solo section is mostly a 2 chord vamp (C-7 to F7), with only the last two measures of each solo setting up the transition either back for another solo or to the bridge. It should be a good piece to introduce students to improvisation using something other than the blues scale to help select notes. With C-7 to F7 being the only two chords there are a number of options. For examples, you can play over a vamp of those two chords using Bb major scale, Bb major pentatonic, Eb major pentatonic (same as C minor pentatonic), or F major pentatonic. You can also use it to introduce the C dorian and F mixolydian scales and show how they both are the same notes as Bb major scale.
Bitter Walnuts, or Hickory, depending on Gaelic or Portugese.
Very good! Didn’t I already clue you into that already? 😛