Theme in Search of a Movie, Isolated horns by Paul Morelli

Composed by John Oddo and performed by the Woody Herman band, Theme in Search of a Movie is a wonderfully mysterious jazz samba with really creative writing and lovely harmonies. I think this is a chart that should be played more! Here it is with isolated horns. I absolutely love the soli after the solo. It's flugelhorn lead over the saxes (a bit of a Woody Herman trademark) which is a cool sound, plus all the quick runs and syncopations that make it sound more improvised than composed. For a genre quite literally defined in part by syncopation, the number of jazz pieces with changing meters is vanishingly small. Why don't more pieces use this device? It's a nice extra layer to syncopation. This is mostly in 4/4, but has the occasional 5/4 or 3/4 or 2/4, especially in the intro and interludes. This chart has a little piccolo in it, with one of the sax players playing it only for the intro. As appropriate for a piece composed by the band's pianist, the solo is written for piano. I played it on flugelhorn, which I think works every bit as well for this piece. It's not an easy set of changes, but it's both very satisfying to play and very satisfying to hear. Because I'm so weak at the piano, the solo descending run near the beginning took a bunch of takes to get even close to in time. Playing a wind instrument, where time is determined mostly by your air starting the note, means I have trouble playing in time on a keyboard where the finger impact starts the note. On winds, when not slurring, the fingers are usually in place early so the note starts clearly when the air starts. This means I tend to hit everything on a piano early! The best take has a loud breath in it, but too bad - it was as good as it was going to get. Composer: John Oddo Performer: Paul Morelli Instrumentation: Alto sax Tenor sax 1 Tenor sax 2 Tenor sax 3 and piccolo Baritone sax Trumpet 1 Trumpet 2 Trumpet 3 Trumpet 4 and flugelhorn (solo) Trumpet 5 Trombone 1 Trombone 2 Bass trombone Bass (played on bass saxophone) Piano - just the written parts.