Jazz Compositions and Arrangements

About these compositions:

These pieces were composed and/or arranged over a long period of time and for a variety of projects. Copyright dates are given on the sheet music if you are curious. Often I have thought that I should follow the advice I have given to composition students over the years and make the harmonies in my compositions more "blowing friendly". But apparently I'm a slow learner.... :)) Stylistically things are all over the map. A couple of arrangements are a purposeful tip of the hat to the great Canadian arranger, Rob McConnell. I love his writing and we all miss him. There's lots of quirky stuff, some straight ahead things. Some are live, some are 'mockups' using sample libraries. Ballad for Mr. G. is featured on the Garritan Jazz and Big Band Library website: https://www.garritan.com

There are a couple of multi-movement works. One is Suite No. 3, a five movement 26 minute piece for jazz orchestra which was premiered at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1978. In 1999, I composed a 2 movement suite again for jazz orchestra, Prayer and Celebration to honour the memory of Canadian saxophonist, Eddie Sossin. This suite was recorded on the ADDO cd release by PRO (Paul Read Orchestra) titled, Arc-en-ciel found in the Discography elsewhere on this site. On a few occasions my work has been recorded by other people. Not on this player is a performance of  my composition, For the Three of Us recorded by Klaus Suonsaari with a wonderful solo by Renee Rosnes. You can find it on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com. It is also on a recording featuring Scott Robinson on tenor saxophone on my cd, The Heart of Summer in the discography section.

Sheet Music (downloadable). More will be added soon...

• Bella Noreen (for Phil)
• Emerald Sea
• For the Three of Us
• Summer
• Waltz for Kelly