My year of adjunct work is going very well and I am enjoying both the variety of classes that I’m teaching and the students. The biggest (and most rewarding) challenge so far is trying to breathe new life into the Maryville University instrumental ensemble. Prior to my arrival, the course had been run as a small jazz group with whatever combination of instrumental music majors happened to sign up. For example, this fall I ended up with a violinist, two flutists, a clarinetist, a trumpet player, three percussionists, two guitarists, a double bassist, and a pianist. I knew that I had neither the numbers nor the instrumentation to field a reasonable wind ensemble, so with some consultation from the department chair, decided that chamber groups were the way to go.

Fortunately, and through a very happy coincidence, I ended up with a jazz quintet (trumpet, guitar, piano, bass, drums), a flute and guitar duo, a percussion duo, and a mixed trio (violin, flute, clarinet). This configuration has allowed me to find good literature for each ensemble and also cater to the individual tastes and performance desires of the various musicians. The trio is playing a Haydn string trio, the guitar and flute duo is playing works by Ibert and Corelli, the percussionists are working on a piece by William Kraft, and the jazz combo has 4 tunes that they’ve almost got worked out. Overall, I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made so far.

The musicians in the jazz combo are a mixture of jazz enthusiasts (piano, trumpet, drums), rock and roll experts (guitar), and one classical musician who wants to learn jazz (string bass). All of them are at varying levels of competence both on their instruments and in their understanding of the genre. This has led to some rather tender moments in rehearsal, particularly since jazz is hardly my expertise. We’ve managed so far, but I’ve found myself facing the task of taking the lead sheets and working out the jazz scales in B-flat as well as trying to write “walking” bass lines. Now, I understand the theory perfectly well and I know generally how to create a walking bass, but every now and then I run across some changes that require a bit more thinking on my part than others and often launch into a trial and error session that can eat up a bunch of my time. Tonight’s project was Wes Montgomery’s “Four On Six” and I think it came out pretty well, but I’m not entirely convinced. If anyone has a good walking bass for the solo section and wants to send it my way, I’d appreciate it!

Next semester we are hoping to recruit enough musicians from the general student population to start a true wind ensemble, but a part of me is really going to miss these chamber groups and especially the combo that has (re)taught me so much of what I had forgotten about jazz.