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My partner, Dr. Jill Allen & I are creating some very different concepts that we'll be presenting with the next generation of our jazz orchestra.

In our last jazz orchestra rendition, just before we left New York City, we added an acoustic bass to the band. This gave Jill the freedom to play flute, because we didn't have to rely on her to play bass guitar all the time.

On the pieces where Jill plays bass guitar, we're coming up with really interesting ways to utilize the bass violin. 

Several of the pieces I'm working on are charts that we were playing with the New York band a few years ago. But, they haven't been recorded yet and I don't consider them fully finished quite yet.

 
Some of those pieces are:

Skip & Me, an original composition of Jill's that I arranged. It will feature tenor sax, as well as Jill on flute and me on trumpet. There's a very elaborate ensemble in about the middle of the chart, several of the lines of which were derived from a solo Jill created on her record entitled  "Petty Theft."

Afternoon of a Fawn, my arrangement of Debussy's incredible classic. On this arrangement, Jill is playing bass guitar, and the bass violin is written in with the orchestra. The bass violin has some bowed solos that I'm really looking forward to hearing in its entirety.

Tanoshii Farm is my original composition. It's about a dream I've had of living on our own farm with lots of space and plenty of pets and animals. We're actually a good part of the way to that reality now. Jill & I have 3 dogs and 2 ducks. And, we have a sizable piece of land. Tanoshii is a Japanese word meaning "delightful" or "happiness."

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors is another of Jill's original compositions that I was compelled to arrange. The bulk of the lines in this piece are taken from solos that either Jill & I played, lifted from several different improvisational solos.  

The concept for our arrangement of the beautiful classic, the Sound of Music was Jill's. She originally wrote a chart for our 5-piece band. I expanded on Jill's original score, and together we came up with this collaboration.