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Shaping the Sextet Sound
Composer and arranger Alan Broadbent performs with a student group and talks about writing for six.
By Ed Hazell
(May 2, 2001)
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Alan Broadbent is Berklee's first Herb Alpert Visiting Professor. |
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Photo by K.Grant |
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Pianist Alan Broadbent leaned over the trombonist's shoulder, pointing out a couple tricky spots in his arrangement. He went back to the piano and sat down, but before he cued the band, he turned to the audience and said with a smile, "Writers, no matter how young or old, always get nervous about their charts."
Helping students dispel some of that anxiety was one of the reasons that Broadbent was at the David Friend Recital Hall on April 11. As the first artist-in-residence in the Herb Alpert Visiting Professor Program, the Grammy-winning arranger and pianist was conducting a workshop in writing for and performing with a jazz sextet. Alpert Visiting Professors work at Berklee for two weeks each academic year for three years. With impressive credentials in both the jazz and pop worlds, Berklee alumnus Broadbent was a perfect fit for the wide range of the curriculum offered at the college.
A New Zealand native, Broadbent moved to Boston in 1966 to study at Berklee. He was plucked out of school by big band leader Woody Herman, for whom he was a writer, arranger, and soloist from 1969-72. Moving to Los Angeles, where he has lived ever since, Broadbent worked as a sideman for trumpeter Chet Baker, tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, and singer Irene Kral, among others. In the '80s, he worked with saxophonist Bud Shank and arranger Nelson Riddle. He also became a founding member of bassist Charlie Haden's Quartet West, along with tenor saxophonist (and Berklee alum) Ernie Watts and drummer Larance Marable. Haden's high-concept band evokes the mood of L.A. in the 1940s. On their CDs, film noir movie dialog and snippets of period jazz albums are often used as segues between hard bop numbers and originals. In 1997, Broadbent's arrangement of "When I Fall in Love" for Natalie Cole earned him his first Grammy. His second came in 2000, for his setting of "Lonely Town" for Shirley Horn on Quartet West's The Art of the Song.
At Berklee, Broadbent fronted a student sextet including trumpeter Mike Shobe, tenor saxophonist Walter Smith, trombonist Jason Camelio, bassist Emmanuel Von Lee, and drummer Kendrick Scott. The sextet with a front line of saxophone, trumpet, and trombone is one of the most versatile and enduring ensembles in jazz. It's a lineup featured on many of the greatest recordings in jazz history, from the 1934 session with tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, trumpeter Red Allen, and trombonist J.C. Higgenbotham through John Coltrane's breakthrough album, Blue Train to the classic edition of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, and Curtis Fuller.
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Trumpeter Mike Shobeand tenor saxophonist Walter Smith harmonizeon a Broadbent tune. |
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Photo by K.Grant |
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After the group warmed up on Tadd Dameron's "Hot House," Broadbent made some introductory remarks about the importance of maintaining your creative edge. "Despite what you hear about Los Angeles," he said, "there is a lot of creative energy there. But you have to seek it out. That's what I had to do. If you don't use that creative energy inside you, it eats you up. You have to let it out."
Then he explained the philosophy guiding the clinic. Everyone was "here to try things out," he said. "We're not here to judge, but to participate in the process of making music happen."
He passed out a new arrangement for "The Long Goodbye," which was originally recorded by Quartet West on their Verve album Haunted Heart, and explained the changes he made when he expanded his chart from quartet to sextet. "I originally wrote it in A minor," he said, "but I realized that it wouldn't work with the tessitura of the instruments, so I changed it to C minor to work better for the horns."
Performing Broadbent's arrangement of "Chris Craft," which used a classic hard bop device of a Latin beat with a swing bridge, offered a lesson in using dynamics to get the feel of the tune right. The band played through the head once, then Broadbent stopped them to go over the tricky bridge. He slowed the tempo so they could master the notes. Then he asked the trumpet and tenor to bring the volume down so that the trombone's lead voice was more prominent. "You want to lay down a mat underneath him," he said. The next time through, not only were the notes right, but the arrangement had more definition.
After they finished, Broadbent turned a critical eye to his own work. Even a Grammy-winner must be willing to rework his score. "I think I'd put more of an ending on this," he said, "or maybe have the drums solo at the end and fade it out. I should write some backgrounds for the soloists, too."
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Broadbent (right) and master's student Jason Camelio examine a score. |
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Photo by K.Grant |
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After a couple tunes, the band had gained confidence as an ensemble, and they needed it to run down trombonist Camelio's "Urgent.""It's a modal tune," he explained, "but I wanted to do more with it than write a head chart, I wanted to develop it, fill it out." In Camelio's elaborate arrangement, the horns enter one at a time until they are all playing the melody in harmony. As each band member solos, the other horns riff behind him. The arrangement gave the performance a sense of drama, variety, and color.
On this tune, and two others by Camelio, Broadbent taught by example. He tried something different on each chorus of his solos. When he comped, he alternately supported the soloist, or fed him ideas that led him in new directions. It was learning by doing in the classic Berklee tradition. Some skills are best learned by experience, and some lessons are best conveyed without words. Broadbent let his piano do most of the teaching.
Ed Hazell is a freelance jazz writer whose work appears in the Boston Phoenix, Jazziz, and other magazines. He is the author of Berklee: The First 50 Years.
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