Entry #1: Brassmen's Holiday

    Hello everyone! My name is Jacob White and I am a first year DMA student in Horn Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Iowa. As part of the Advanced Brass Ensemble Literature course, I am making a blog to recap daily discussions and listening.

    But no blog would be complete without a perfect theme to go along with, yes? For my blog, I am entitling it "Big Fat Brass" after Billy's May album of the same name. This album is a gem, some jazz standards, some originals, and a whole lot of (big fat) brass playing written for brass and percussion ensemble. Just looking at the horn personnel on the album... Vince De Rosa and James Decker? Talk about Hollywood heavy weights.

Album Tracks and Information: Big Fat Brass

    Unfortunately, many of these arrangements have been lost. From what I was told, many (or perhaps all) the arrangements were lost in a studio warehouse fire. In 2008, there was a fire at Universal Studios which caused a total loss of many catalogs for the Universal Music Group. This could be the source of that tremendous loss. They could have also been lost to time, or in someone's attic? Who really knows.

    Now, how did I come to find out about this record? Well, during my masters at the University of Redlands in California (2018-2020), I had the pleasure of playing with the Southern California Brass Consortium, a superb brass and percussion ensemble in the LA area. They put on several concerts throughout the year, usually highlighting film music. However, one of the concerts I played on happened to be a concert dedicated to Billy May and this album! 

    Now you might be wondering, but these arrangements were lost... how did you perform them? Magic. Well, sorta. The lead trumpeter for the group Drew Ninmer has a brother, Scott Ninmer, who happens to be one of the staff arrangers for the "The President's Own" United States Marine Band. Talk about an insane connection. He proceeded to transcribe, by ear, 7-8 arrangements off the album and we performed them for the concert. How lucky is that?

    Anyways, enjoy the title track of the album "Brassmen's Holiday" written by Mario Ruiz Armengol. I'll see you next week for another track, commentary, and some thoughts on my learning's from this course.

- Jacob