Description

Harry Warren – September in the Rain

Manning Sherwin – A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square    

Jimmy McHugh – I’m in the Mood for Love

Jack Strachey – These Foolish Things

Marcos Valle – So Nice

This sixth volume of arrangements for brass quintet features another five classic songs from the Great American Songbook. In penning these arrangements, I have tried to ensure that all five instruments have their ‘moments in the sun’: if not always in each song then certainly throughout the volume itself, which contains a variety of styles and tempi. In this volume, I’ve featured two enduring ballads – A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and These Foolish Things. The volume opens with a gentle swinger – September in the Rain – and here I’ve shamelessly borrowed some of the elements of the late George Shearing’s interpretation for my arrangement. Meanwhile, I’m in the Mood for Love is a popular jazz standard because it seems to work at almost any tempo. Finally, a little more Latin: the cha cha So Nice, immortalised by Astrud Gilberto.    

The arrangements are very much designed for public performance: whether as amusing novelties/encores within a concert dominated by more serious music, or perhaps as background music for an event. I hope that brass players of all standards enjoy these arrangements, which demonstrate the sheer beauty of melodic and harmonic invention within the genre.

Felix Rigg

Parts included:

  • Score
  • Trumpet 1 in B-flat
  • Trumpet 2 in B-flat
  • Horn in F
  • Trombone
  • Tuba