April in Paris, words by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg and music by Vernon Duke arranged for Brass Quintet. Composed for the musical ?Walk a Little Faster?, this song has been covered by numerous vocalists and jazz orchestras. This is an easier advanced arrangement of this very popular jazz standard! The playing time is approximately 3:35 To view and listen to this piece in its entirety as well hundreds of other arrangement and transcriptions by Kenneth Abeling at the lowest prices available please visit: https://lincolnmusicpublications.com/

This arrangement starts with a slow statement of the melody, then starts swinging at very laid-back tempo, and finally moves to a faster, more lively tempo before ending broadly. It's the old New Orleans funeral routine--slow to the cemetery, and up-beat on the way back. There's plenty of call and response, and I think you'll enjoy the harmonies and the "improvised" lines. The arrangement is suitable for professionals or advanced amateurs. Please give the MP3 a listen. Duration: 2 minutes, 25 seconds.

Brass Quintet (2007) was commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and is dedicated to composer Alan Fletcher. The piece is cast in a one-movement, loose sonata form. The work begins with a lyrical and slow exposition, marked ?distant, unfolding.? A horn solo interrupts the lyrical lines, anticipating the development section. The development is faster in pace and jagged in contour, beginning with all five players in interlocking harmonic interplay. Out of this texture, a series of three duos (trumpet/tuba, horn/trombone, and two trumpets) emerge. The final trumpet duo presents the opening lyrical ideas re-cast as a herald fanfare. A brief, slow interlude leads to the recapitulation, marked ?excited, relentless.? A series of hocketing ostinati create the backdrop over which the original material returns. Though the music has a very different mood, the structural template is the same as in the exposition. The piece drives forward to its conclusion.? The set includes both parts for Bb or C trumpets.

That most sensual of ballroom dances, the tango, originated during the 1880s along the R�o de la Plata, the confluence of the Uruguay and Paran� rivers. It got started among the enslaved peoples and the lower classes, became popular and eventually spread to other countries.
The tango is closely identified with Argentina, and Argentine musician �.G. Villoldo was instrumental in developing the music of the dance. He supposedly wrote this particular tango to celebrate the proprietor of a nightclub, a gentleman whose nickname was ?El Choclo? (in English: ?The Corn Cob?!).
?El Choclo? premiered in Buenos Aires in 1903 and became one of Argentina?s most popular tangos. Dance orchestras recorded instrumental versions of "El Choclo." It achieved widespread popularity in the United States in 1952 when Lester Allen and Robert Hill provided it with English-language lyrics and a new name: ?Kiss of Fire.? A number of singers made recordings of ?Kiss of Fire? that year, the most popular of which was that of Georgia Gibbs; her ?Kiss of Fire? disc reached the top spot on the Billboard chart.
The melody for ?El Choclo? is exciting, stirring, stimulating, electrifying; in other words, perfect for a brass group. In this arrangement Horn in F has the melody throughout much of the piece, but Trumpets, Trombone and Tuba also take turns with the lead. The piece opens in the key of D minor, switches to D major (for the part of the melody that was not in the Georgia Gibbs version) and finally goes back to D minor for the recap of the main melody and a dramatic conclusion. The suggested tempo is 120 but may certainly be played faster. All notes are within the normal playing range of the five instruments. However the Tango rhythm lies mostly in the bass line, so Tuba and sometimes Trombone have frequent octave and octave-plus jumps.
Completed in 2020, performance time for ?El Choclo? runs about 2 minutes, 50 seconds. The arranger, Les Smith, will be happy to provide substitute parts (for example, treble clef baritone for trombone) at no charge; contact him directly at lessmith61@bellsouth.net. For more arrangements by Les, enter "Sweetwater Brass Press" (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus search box.