ONE: “Air on a ‘G’ String” Complete, J. S. Bach, arranged and performed by the Brubeck-Neal Duo
TWO: “Lucy” by John Lennon & Paul McCartney. performed by the Brubeck-Neal Duo, arranged by Brubeck. (Music at 1:15)
THREE: “Goldberg Variations” by J. S. Bach Marc Reese and David Brubeck-Audio file Only:
1. bach-goldberg-with-marc-reesenew
FOUR: “Flow My Tears” by John Dowland performed by the Shefcik-Brubeck Duo, and arranged by Brubeck-Neal.
FIVE “Sea Journey” by Chick Core, performed by the Brubeck-Neal Duo, arranged by Brubeck
SIX “Fur Elise” by Ludvig von Beethoven, performed by Shefcik-Brubeck and arranged by Brubeck-Neal
SEVEN: “Two Part Invention No. 4” by J. S. Bach (Music at 1:10)
ALTERNATE TAKES
EIGHT: “Two Part Invention No. 4” Faster Tempo, by J. S. Bach
At first, it seemed to be brass quartets, from Speer and later Venice. Then valves and Ewald and quintets. But what about a duo? Yes, just TWO brass! This is what I would have been looking to listen to when I was a boy…Album II Brass Duos!
LOVE BASS TROMBONE IN A DUO FORMAT?
Check out Legendary Jazz Group, Miami’s Own Duo Brubeck:
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Featuring Lindsay Blair in Miami’s Own, DUO BRUBECK
Miami’s Own, Duo Brubeck, began in about 1991, with Tom Lippincott on guitar and David Brubeck on bass-trombone. As the group became more successful, Tom was not always available. A second set of repertoire and line-up for the duo emerged with Mitch Farber on guitar and David Brubeck on bass-trombone.
A breakthrough came when a concert was scheduled downtown Miami, alternating both versions of the duo. By each guitarist listening to one other play the complicated arrangements without having to focus on playing them, both were able to more fully grasp the concept of the group beyond the virtuosity of the parts.
The success of the group reached an important crest when Duo Brubeck was invited to perform at the 2017 International Trombone Festival near Los Angeles, California. One catch; both Tom Lippincott and Mitch Farber were busy the week of the festival!
There were doubts that any guitarist could reach the level of Lippincott or Farber in an idiom that they helped to create-jazz guitar and bass trombone duos! Eve if another guitarist they could, the time frame was daunting! Duo Brubeck had grown and accumulated techniques and literature for years, if not decades:to plug someone in now for a feature length concert seemed unlikely if not impossible given such short notice.
Except for Lindsey Blair.
Lindsay accpeted the challenge, and was even willing and available to fly out to Los Angeles. Some arrangements needed to be written down for the first time and new pieces were adapted. In record time, DUO BRUBECK 3.0, featuring Lindsay Blair, became a thing of beauty and originality on its own.
“Strawberry Fields, Forever”
“Old Devil Moon”
“Use Me Up”
“Yes, jesus Loves Me”
“Go Tell Aunt Rhody”
“Blue Bossa”
ALTERNATE TAKES
“Strawberry Fields”
c. 2024 David William Brubeck. All Rights Reserved.
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Dear Friends, I have been creating Ad hoc “albums” of collected videos and recordings in which my bass trombone and I have taken part. Jazz duos with Mitch, Jazz Duos with Lindsey, Brass Duos, Concertos, a Christmas Trombone Sextet Album with Dr. Campbell’s Trombones, a Ray Charles DVD, and now this-Brass for four and eight! As a young bass trombonists, this is the type of music I would have been searching for…
Brass Miami Live in Concert (“La Rejouissance” from Music for the Royal Fireworks, by George Frederic Handel.
GRATITUDES! As a freshman at Illinois State University I was blessed to have Rick Lehman as my brass quintet coach and to be allowed to play in the brass quintet where other members were graduate students or seniors! (He even let me play my bass trombone!). Rick was one of the best friends I ever had, and when one of the trumpet graduate students graduated-he joined the group even though he was a faculty member!
“Adagio” by Benedetto Marcello, Brass Miami Octet Live! (Also recorded in rehearsal with Gittelson/Brubeck and trOmBOnE tm Duo Winds)
I was fortunate indeed to know ISU Trombone Professor John Rehm and Charlie Stokes, who formed a student/faculty trombone quartet. Fellow trombone student Bill Aurand and I were blessed to play alongside them and share in their incredible musical knowledge and musicianship. The provided an intimate education in the music of Heinrich Schutz and other Renaissance and period brass music in particular. My favorite recollection was a performance they scheduled for us at the church in Springfield, Illinois where Abraham Lincoln had attended.
“La Morisque” from Five Renaissance Dances by Tylman Susato, Brass Miami Octet-Live
In the summer, I was privileged to play in a brass quintet, bass trombone on tuba part, at Birch Creek Academy. Our coaches were the incredible Chicago Chamber Brass with Steve Gamble on trombone. I have yet to hear a better brass quintet live and am so grateful that my high school trombone teacher and mentor, Dr. Thomas Streeter provided this to me. I have so many blessings to be thankful for!.
It was at Birch Creek that I decided chamber music was my favorite medium of expression for classical music (Duo Brubeck later made it my favorite for jazz). At Northwestern….sadly, no chamber music! Except possibly for the orchestral excerpt class- to which Frank Crisafulli from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, made the most profoundly musical and humorous contributions. (We were all in shock and awe! (TRULY Unexpectedly HILARIOUS and PROFOUND!). Rex Martin, Vincent Chicowicz, and others were unbelievable.
“Dance” from Three Dansyere by Tylman Susato, Brass Miami Octet-Live
“Hornpipe” from Water Music by George Frederic Handel, Brass Miami Octet-Live!
At UM, I remember starting the UM Trombone Choir with my students and Dr. Campbell coming in and making it official by adding his. Apart from a great brass choir with trumpet master Gil Johnson, and a the wonderful UM Tuba Ensemble, where I played euphonium, WE MADE OUR OWN chamber music! I could not have been more fortunate to have attended at the same time as two other fine trombonists and we played trombone trios for about two hours literally every day, M-F, for two years (!): Domingo Pagliuca, Steve Saunders..
The climax of my college chamber music experience had to be playing the world premieres of two pieces written for me by Dr. Campbell, one solo with String Quartet and another within the context of a trombone quartet-but that sounds like another album! It is still an incredible honor when a composer dedicates a piece to me, and none mores than those by my teacher, Dr. Campbell, and friend and colleague, Thom Sleeper.
As a professional I have been most blessed by performing brass at Coral Ridge, and with the brass quartet/octet of John Georgini, The Coronation Brass in addition to my collaborations with Brian Neal and my own groups.
Fun fact-I was THIS stupid: Rolf Smedvig called and asked me to play a concert with the Empire Brass in Naples as a jazz soloist and I said no…… (WHAT was I thinking??)
“Pavane: La Bataille” by Tylman Susato, Brass Miami Octet-Live
As a classical chamber musician, I was largely unprepared to enter the world of concertos-rare enough for a bass trombonists in the first place! I was blessed to have exceptionally sensitive conductors who were open to suggestions and communicated well with me. I was also blessed to perform with fellow musicians, many former or current students, who might accept a turn of phrase or concept from me.
Six Arias for Bass Trombone and Orchestra, by Thomas Sleeper, as performed by soloist David Brubeck and the FAUSO under the direction of Dr.Laura Joella. AUDIO:
I was the lucky one!
Others have reported experiences of just showing up and reading through the concerto in rehearsal with few opportunities for the types of interactions that chamber music often affords. With 50-100 people waiting, there is simply very little time to invite discussion on nuance or phrasing.
Bass Trombone Concerto No. 2, by Thomas Sleeper, world premiere by soloist David Brubeck and the FAUSO under the direction of Dr. Laura Joella. AUDIO:
My suggestion? Rehearse with a fine pianist and a piano reduction. Get all the exploration worked through on your own and later with the pianist, finding the give and take of phrases, crests of dynamics, welling of emotions and strata of musical importance. Then pray for a sensitive conductor!
Bass Trombone Concerto, by Elizabeth Raum, as performed by soloist David Brubeck and the Miami Symphonic Band under the direction of Robert Longfield. USA premiere & world premiere of concerto with wind ensemble accompaniment. AUDIO:
As you can hear, my prayers were answered. WHAT A TREMENDOUS privilege to be the soloist to whom a concerto was dedicated by my beautiful friend and long time colleague, Tom Sleeper, alongside the FAUSO and conductor Dr. Laura Joella. We love you, Thomas, and think of you often. Thanks for all of your beautiful humanity-and some of it was audible!
“Canticles” by Johann de Meij for Bass Trombone and wind Ensemble as performed by soloist David Brubeck with the MDC Wind Ensemble under the direction of Brian Neal. VIDEO:
Bass voices are fragile, and problematic for the concerto, but skilled composers allow the mellow sounds to soar and find niches of resonance for the bass voice to inhabit with alacrities both great and small.
Soloist plus orchestra! The concerto was the FIRST significant form of ensemble instrumental concert music, and strikes a perfect blend between recognizing of the outstanding contributions of the individual AND the society.
It is still somewhat difficult to find bass trombone concertos, especially live! This is what I would have been looking to listen to when I was a boy…Album III Concertos!
Ipuwer Papyrus (IP), LEIDEN 344. Was the writer Ipuwer an Egyptian, circa 1440 BC, who described the plagues of Exodus and their aftermath from the Ancient Egyptian Perspective?
FROM VIDEO:
Ipuwer Papyrus , IP-“There is blood everywhere…Lo the river is blood.”/mirrored in Exodus 7:20-21
IP-“One thirsts for water.”/also recorded in Exodus 7:24
IP-“Lo, trees are felled, branches stripped.”/reflects Exodus 9:24
IP-“Lo, grain is lacking on all sides.”/ like Exodus 9:31
IP-“Birds find neither fruits nor herbs.”/similar to Exodus 10:15
IP-“Groaning is throughout the land, mingled with laments.”/ sounds like Exodus 12:30
IP-“Lo, many dead are buried in the river, the stream is the grave, the tomb became a stream, and he who puts his brother in the ground is everywhere.”/ is reflected in Numbers 33:4
IP-“All is ruin!”/ seems related to Exodus 10:7
IP-“The land is without light.”/ Could this be Exodus 10:22-23.
IP-“Gold and Lapis lazuli, silver and malachite, carnelian and bronze…are fastened on the neck of female slaves.”/seem to correlate with Exodus 12:35-36
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Around 1990, I had the pleasure of performing with a wonderful horn line as part of Raymond Cajuste’s Bossa Comba. It seemed that the whole band made it to the concert in Miami, except the trombonist-who may have been ill at the time. I was very fortunate to have been asked to fill in. I was even more surprised when I found that they were playing on the South Side of Chicago the following week, just before Christmas, and that I would be home in Illinois to perform with them a second time. The horn section I recall was one trumpet, or two and two saxophones plus myself.
The closest I had lived to Chicago was a half block North of Howard Street , in Evanston. The South Side was the subject of the imagination for me and a mixture of impressions I had garnered from Jim Croce Songs, The University of Chicago and tales of Elliot Ness, and on one cold winter night, rhe tale of a young trombonist newly transplanted to Miami. I remember being very cold and shivering without a sweater. Without hesitation, the big burly Haitian trumpet player literally loaned me the sweater of his back! (I was rather thin in those days!). I had just acquired a diesel van, and had to take every opportunity to start it up on our breaks, lest I become stranded at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Headquarters on the South Side a day or two before Christmas.
I recall beautiful music and even more beautiful people. Since then, I felt that of all the people I have met in my lifetime, those from Haiti were the nicest. I also recalled the moment, about an hour or so into the gig, it suddenly occurred to me that I might be the only blonde for miles around-certainly at the concert! And then we just played some more and more. I was sorry to discover that Monsieur Cajuste passed away last year, and am grateful to have performed with him and his wonderful band.
c. 2024 David William Brubeck All Rights Reserved.
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Did a Japanese pre-print call for a suspension of all mRNA “vaccines” as concern that transfusions of “vaccinated” blood may have adverse affects on the un-vaccinated?!
Is “Deadly Quiet”, a micro-documentary on Excess Deaths from the view a British funeral director?
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It’s true! We literally had THE most fun when Giulia was on the job! Often times, it did not even seem like work. We loved all of her stories about growing up near Vienna , Austria “The City of Musicians” EXCEPT ONE: The creature that came out to torment Austrians on Nikolaus-KRAMPUS! SCARY!
Giulia possess such a warm sound and is able to do so much with it-AMAZING! We wish her the best!
OUR ADVICE: Have a great time while you can; she might not be there too long! (And whatever you do, do NOT ask about Krampus!)
