Jazzy Brass Quintet

[Tim Jackson]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I'm starting in on my bucket list early!
I'm looking for some really hip jazz arrangements for a brass quintet. I have been all over the web, and I have only found a handful of Jack Gale arrangements on the Canadian Brass site that spark my interest. artofmusicsound.com seems to have some good stuff. Most everything else sounds square. Also interested in well-crafted, highly expressive ballads or short works. I think I have most of the standard repertoire on disk somewhere, but I really want to develop a fun library for my friends - a rehearsal group of sorts for jazzers that are also good legit players. I really like finding sites that offer sound samples, as I don't like spending money on stuff that ain't gonna make it. I hope this call for tunes and advice will produce some ideas for this mission.
I really appreciate any help you can provide.
Tim

[bloke]

The only stuff I've ever heard - in the small brass ensemble realm - that don't sound "cornball" have been various trombone quartet arrangements (which I've either played on cimbasso with three trombonists or in a tuba quartet), and those seem to have been written by big band arrangers who understand jazz chords and how they work, rather than people who mostly write so-called classical arrangements who were attempting to imitate the way jazz arrangements sound.

I apologize for not offering any actual help, and only leaving a comment.

[Mark]

Arrangements by Jack Gale are usually pretty good.

[Mary Ann]

I'm not jazzy enough myself to know what would fit in your category, but the recent Monsoon Brass (quintet) performance had some pretty jazzy stuff in it. Jsason Carder is 1st trumpet and he is a jazz guy. To my ears a very good one. But if you contacted Monsoon Brass they might be able to point you to some of the pieces they played.

https://monsoonbrass.com/member-bios.html

[ghmerrill]

Maybe look on MuseScore and see what you can see? I notice a bunch of arrangements by Frank McCloud that you might be able to use (or turn into something), and a bunch of other possibilities. If you squint a bit hard, a fairly standard Dixieland band (like Tuba Skinny) has instrumentation that corresponds to some degree to a brass quintet -- sort of (?). You might need to pick up a washboard player.

[Tim Jackson]

The search is going reasonably well. Not really producing that much because I'm now convinced there's just not much in print/published. I have come to grips with the fact that the best jazz arrangers & composers are not inclined to score for brass quintet or any other classical chamber group. I have managed to find enough stuff to fill a folder of my "cross-over" quintet project. This is not a traditional jazz or ragtime book. Some of Jack Gale's stuff is nice, plus a few other published works. Most of the best new brass quintet works are commissioned. Most brass quintets with a budget for such things are not really into what I call "real" jazz, so there's just not much coming to the market. The project is my pipe dream, so I continue on.
The best part of all this is after searching the web for a solid week (been sick, so I had time off to sit and listen), listening to great brass playing for 4-6 hours a day for a week has had an enormous effect on my playing.

TJ

[UncleBeer]

I always liked Jack Gale's stuff (a friend from my NYC days), and he did quite a few quintet arrangements. Not sure they were all published though. It might take some intensive sleuthing to find many of 'em.

[Richard III]

I tried a similar task last year for a tuba quartet and came to a similar conclusion. There just isn't enough out there. And I wasn't limiting it to just jazz. I included pop music too. Even with that, still not enough material. I was willing to do conversions myself of any four part arrangement that might work. There still wasn't enough material. My conclusion is that there just aren't many groups who do that type of thing. Most quartets and quintets start as classical groups who then dabble in other genres. There's also the problem that classical players are usually not comfortable with other styles of music.

[York-aholic]

Dallas Brass: “Brass Grooves”

There are sound samples towards the bottom.

https://www.dallasbrass.com/brass-grooves

[Bassboner]

I was on a similar quest recently for both tbone quartet and brass quintet. I mostly found random good charts or piecing together stuff myself. This was for jazz or pop/rock. You have to sort through a lot of junk, but you can find isolated gems from time to time. Musescore.com has some usable charts. Yes, there's a lot of trash. If you can look beyond it, you'll find some usable stuff.

[opus37]

Try going to brassmusiconline.com and look for "Puff, The Magic Dragon". It is also available for listening on YouTube.

There's a few other charts on that site that might interest you too.

[ghmerrill]

I just got an email about this performance titled "A Jazz Journey in Brass" by the Cape Fear Brass Quintet. You might contact Dan Johnson (https://uncw.edu/profiles/j/johnsond) about what arrangements they're using.

A Jazz Journey in Brass: https://uncw.campuslabs.com/engage/event/11918137