I just posted a new article about Jazz Voicings. This one looks at the thickened line technique, most commonly used when writing for big band saxophone sections. Make sure you look at Part 1 first if you are not familiar with jazz chord progressions and piano voicings.
A few albums have recently come out that I did string arrangements for. I have done many projects for producer Salaam Remi over the years. One in the Chamber, featuring Akon has possibly the greatest lyric I have had the pleasure of providing basic pads and cheesy string lines to, ever!
Salaam also produced an album for Mack Wilds (actor from The Wire and 90210) featuring the hit Own It.
I recently finished work on Chris Beck’s score for the next Muppets Movie, which was a lot of fun.
In the last two months I also orchestrated A Walk Among the Tombstones for Carlos Rivera (Carlos’ first score — nice way to start!), Justin Bieber’s Believe for Nathan Lanier, and some new content for Soul Sacrifice for Yasunori Mitsuda.
In the middle of all of that I went to London and recorded some SSD for an upcoming WB game, and I will be starting work on the rest of the score very soon.
Somewhere in there I wrote a big band commission for Lone Peak High School in Utah. They will be premiering it at the Jazz Education Network Conference in January. I will also be giving a lecture on jazz notation and be making appearances at the Makemusic booth.
But the coolest thing by far was when my high school music teacher, Graeme Morton, dropped by a session. He is doing a research project on his students that sang in the choir and have gone on to careers in music, but not as singers. I learnt a lot from his choir and classes, I was able to sleep through the first year of theory lectures at the conservatorium thanks to him.
Next up I am conducting Nathan Furst’s Need for Speed score and a few more movies for Chris Beck.
My IMDB page has been updated to include all the latest projects I’ve worked on.
