News and Updates
It is the 2nd week of the New Year, however I feel like I just finished 2014 yesterday. The last few months of 2014 were intense. I was called to write additional music for a rather famous director. More info once the release is closer in October. I have also been busy orchestrating Revenge and the new Fox show Empire. I just finished orchestrating The Moon and the Sun for Heitor Pereira. Next up I will attempt to finish my big band album before work…
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TD with Gustavo Santaolalla and director Jorge Gutierrez Book of Life is out! I worked with Gustavo Santaolalla on the score. Firstly arranging strings for his and Paul William's awesome songs, then I took those themes, and some more that he gave me (his demos will be on the score album) and arranged them into over an hour of underscore. We used a 90-piece orchestra and lots of guitar, ethnic flute and accordion. I even convinced them to let me record…
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Over the years I have developed a lot of tricks and shortcuts for orchestrating. Here is a screencast where I go from midi file to finished score and you can see my process and how I have tricked out my setup. I am back in the TV world, orchestrating season 4 of Revenge for Fil Eisler. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is out. I orchestrated and conducted the score for Chris Beck.
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I got right of the plane from Australia and jumped into work on The Simpsons Take the Bowl. I took cues and songs from the original TV scores by Alf Clausen and blew them up to full orchestra. It was a lot of fun seeing Alf and Dell Hake's original orchestrations. I also orchestrated a suite of music by Hans Zimmer and several new arrangements by Jim Dooley and of course a few versions of the iconic Danny Elfman theme.
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I will be guesting with the Daryl McKenzie Jazz Orchestra at the Apartment on Monday August 25. The last 3 months have been the most intense but rewarding I have ever had. I wrote over an hour of orchestral music with Gustavo Santaolalla for Fox's Book of Life. The music is now mixed and the final touches are being out on the film. It will be released in October. We used up to a 90 piece orchestra, accordion, ethnic flutes, guitars, choir and soloists. …
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I finished the first quarter with a bang. Frozen has broken some box office records and the Muppets and Need for Speed came out. But the highlight was playing drums with Nas and the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, I also wrote half the charts. Here is a little info on it from the Finale Blog. Here is my demo for New York State of Mind. They filmed the rehearsals and the concert for a documentary. Before that I was conducting Chris…
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I will be on a panel called "The Hollywood Arrangers" for ASMAC on Wednesday 22nd. I will be talking about my studio setup and how I arrange and orchestrate with Finale.
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I just noticed that I arranged strings on two Grammy Nominated albums this year. Salaam Remi- One in the Chamber and Mack Wilds- New York: A Love Story Take a listen. Salaam Remi and Mack Wilds
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Upcoming appearances: Jazz Education Network Conference in Dallas, TX. January 10 and 11. I am giving a lecture on the 11th at 10am entitled "Notation Plain and Simple -- The Jazz Default." At 6pm I will be premiering a new commission with the Lone Peak High School Big Band from Utah. The rest of the time I will be at the MakeMusic booth in the exhibitors hall. Drop by and say hi. Frozen recently came out and was a huge success. It took me a while, but…
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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…
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