When thinking of material to arrange for big band, a song from 1865 might not be the first thing that would pop into a modern arranger’s head. But in 2009, I received an unusual arranging assignment for a special concert of the Westchester Jazz Orchestra (WJO) directed by Michael Holober, with the resulting arrangement also being recorded and released later in 2014 by my own big band on the CD Strength In Numbers (Summit records). The WJO concert’s theme was “Americana,” presenting material that was to represent some of the earliest well-known melodies created in this country, going back as far as the 1700s and 1800s. I was to pick a song and reinvent it anyway I liked, as long as it was a truly original and modern take on the material.
Stephen Foster’s immortal “Beautiful Dreamer” came to mind as my choice for its lovely and distinctive melody and clear song structure. Right away, I felt I could do something with this classic piece of early American music, and the resulting arrangement was nominated for a Grammy in 2015 in the category Best Arrangement–Instrumental or A Cappella. In this article, I have chosen to focus on a few of the arranging devices I employed during the creation of the work that give the chart a unique and interesting quality.
One of the first important decisions I needed to make was to impart an overall feeling to the arrangement—tempo, style, any distinctive rhythmic treatment of the melody, soloists, etc. A bright samba groove was eventually chosen, providing a clear contrast to the original’s slower tempo/style. The groove itself also suggested ways of treating the rhythmic quality of the melody and other elements of the accompaniment. But I hit a roadblock when I more carefully considered the original song; it was set in a waltz meter and in three-bar phrases. This presented a challenge to make the arrangement’s melody work logically in the new chosen context (cut time with four beats per bar set in four-bar phrases). My solution was to stretch the melody to float over the bar line in an effort to better reflect the general melody length of each phrase groupings of the original. In writing the melodic rhythm this way, I also was able to create some interesting syncopated figures, which also implied a three-over-four hemiola. Both ideas seemed to fit well with the chosen rhythmic feeling of a samba, while also trying to approximate the melodic phrase lengths of the original.
The next challenge had to do with reuse of ideas. Since I planned on using this melodic rhythmic figure at several points in the presentation of the melody (and elsewhere, sometimes using only as a fragment), I needed to find some way to keep the listener’s interest, not allowing the music to sound overly predictable. So, I presented the melody in the first “A” section of the melody as simply a solo instrument: soprano saxophone accompanied by the traditional chords. Then, in the second “A” of the form, I kept the melodic rhythm the same as in the previous section, but taking a tip from heroes of mine such as Duke Ellington (think “Concerto For Cootie”) and Thad Jones (think “Three And One”), harmonized each melodic note with a different chord based on step-wise bass motions.
The first phrase has a descending bass line/chords moving by half-steps (arriving on the “I” chord/C major), while the second phrase ascends (arriving on a surprise reharmonization of Ab13b9). The third is a combination of the two ideas, where the stepwise bass line (first as a pedal, then descending) seems to stop on the reharmonization of B7#9, only to resolve back up to the tonic C major, this time voiced in unison—a further surprise after having had so many voicings in this section. This unison C idea is reused at several other spots in the arrangement, including the very last note, as one of several unifying elements.
The sweet-sounding sonority of a soprano saxophone seemed to fit as the best choice to be the main soloist for the melody and as a featured improvisational soloist (played with great musicality on the recording by Dave Pietro). I also knew I wanted to insert the original waltz tempo at the end, as a duet between the soprano sax and piano, so piano (Michael Holober) was chosen as another featured improviser. On my recorded version of the arrangement, Holober lends a wonderful, harmonically adventurous improvised solo-piano passage midway in the form of the chart that adds refreshing contrast. This is where the arranger can use the talents of the members of the band to his/her own service; I knew Holober would create an wonderfully abstract musical fantasy based elements of the original song. It was the perfect missing piece to the puzzle to make the overall arrangement work well (Holober, as many of you may know, is himself is an excellent composer-arranger).
As both of the main soloists finish their respective improvisational statements, the chart moves into a long repeated vamp section, adding various layers of ensemble and building towards a big shout-chorus-type section at the bridge of the song’s form. For the final “A” section of this last chorus, I couldn’t resist using a paraphrase of Foster’s original presentation. Alan Farnham, fellow arranger and pianist on the 2009 WJO concert, provided me with a downloaded PDF file of the original first-edition arrangement written by Foster himself (available from the Library of Congress website), originally published in 1865. As an added surprise, Alan played it himself as an additional/inserted introduction during the 2009 WJO concert on a beat-up old piano he found in the back of the concert hall. After more careful study of Foster’s original, I created the duet melody featuring the two main soloists as both a final “goodbye” to the song and a reminder to the listener of Foster’s original vision. One last long ensemble unison C (a unifying element) paired with some fragments of the original melody in the piano, some last gestures from the soprano sax, and one final short C in octaves from the trombones (aka, a “button”) concludes the work.
Upon hearing the recording of the arrangement, renowned arranger Bill Holman responded by writing: “Wonderful writing—Pete extracted more music from the song than most people knew was in there.” That to me is the joy of arranging. Not only “extracting music from the song,” but by finding new ways to present and complement an original. It is also like the old argument we arrangers often have: Is something “arranged” or “recomposed”? Sometimes, it is a bit of both—a truly fun way to honor any great song.
