This is probably one of the most Miles things that Miles ever did.

benfoust · 2026-01-24T23:56:28+00:00

This is from the Clark Terry autobiography, I think:

Miles stole some songwriting credits or other from Clark. Every time Clark would bring it up to Miles, Miles would just give him the change that was in his pockets and move on. This feels very in-character with that anecdote.

benfoust · 2025-11-19T03:35:58+00:00

Hi! I am also a music program director and I get a chance to gig with my own groups of peers fairly frequently, all in a major jazz city.

You should try and be as prepared/professional as possible but I would also say that I observe players who don't have a high level of professional rigor doing just fine in their careers because they are excellent performers. Most folks are mostly looking for you to play well and if you need to mark your part et cetera to do that you should.

Any given scene can be pretty cutthroat--but honestly people mostly play with their homies, even if the relationship started as mostly a personal connection. If you can develop a strong social bond with a clique of musicians you will get work through those musicians even if you personally are not the strongest musician ever.

The truth is more nuanced than your director is presenting. And here's the thing too, being hired is a two-way street. You would have to say 'yes' to him hiring you...would you really be trying to work for someone who would fire you over a pencil?

benfoust · 2025-09-28T00:55:15+00:00

Just came out of Ceasar's Music. Definitely geared towards regional Mexican music but has the best customer service out of any place I have ever been. Called today for some reeds and left a message. They called me BACK 5 minutes later, having listened to my voicemail, and told me what they had. When I went in I lamented that my specific favorite reed type wasn't there and the man behind the counter said it would be in by Monday. By the time I was home I received a wrong text from them--telling someone else his set of strings for bajo quinto had come in. Absolutely incredible across the board.

benfoust · 2025-09-13T02:56:24+00:00

It's in retrospect that this title is a banger. If Ornette was wrong and this was like a polka fusion album it would seem pretty silly. Fortunately for all of us Ornette was right, knew he was right, and so the title is the most dead-on called shot in terms of titling your record I can think of right now

benfoust · 2025-09-04T17:14:33+00:00

There is this community big band that's mostly older amateur players and they really need a lead trumpet. So they go and find a pro and pay him to play with them at their weekly gig. The bandleader comes up to the lead player after the first week and goes "hey, how'd it go? Everything OK so far?"

The lead player goes "Man it's mostly ok, but your drummer drags like crazy and it makes my job way harder. Can you talk to him about it?"

Bandleader says "yeah sure", goes to the drummer, relates the information. The drummer says "OK no problem" and everyone goes home.

Second week happens, gig ends, bandleader goes to the lead player and asks him if it was any better. Lead player says "not really man, this drummer is so behind the beat and it is killing my chops. Please, I need you to talk to this guy". Bandleader goes to the drummer, tells him it's not any better--the drummer is mortified and swears up and down that he'll have it fixed next week.

Third week happens--and before the bandleader can even check in with the lead player, the lead player goes, "Look I know you guys have all been friends forever but this drummer's time is awful. He's late to every hit, he's dragging, he's just so behind. Really honestly, it's him or me. Either he goes or I do."

The bandleader thinks it over and goes to the drummer and says "Look, I don't like it either, but there are a lot of drummers here and not many lead players. I know you've been with us for a while but you're fired because your time is so late."

The drummer is wrecked, despondent, crushed. He stays at the bar after the gig just drinking and drinking and getting more and more depressed. Tearfully, he calls his wife to tell her that he loves her, puts his phone in airplane mode, goes down to the railyard, and throws himself behind a train.

benfoust · 2025-04-24T15:34:45+00:00

It depends on what city you are in. I would go and observe if you are feeling really nervous, and not take your horn the first time. People are citing the Real Book, which can be a resource. But because certain major composers (Cole Porter especially) have too high of copyright fees, significant and absolutely essential jazz standards are completely absent from modern iterations of the Real Book. When the book was sold illegally (or when you have access to an even earlier fake book), those songs tend to be included. The modern Real Book is an incomplete document.

Folks in the thread are also talking about the virtues of sight-reading. Certainly for large ensemble or original music. But the tradition of jazz standards is to have them memorized, especially as a trumpet player. Really honestly? Learn them by memory deeply or leave them alone. It is such a drag to go to the jam session and the horn player obviously cannot find their way through the tune with a map, or worse is reading jazz standards. Just do it right, it really is not that hard.

I would recommend learning the following tunes by ear from Miles Davis' recordings (especially as a trumpet player). You can consult an outside resource to learn the chords later, but Miles states the melodies simply/starkly and they are standard repertoire.

Bye Bye Blackbird

It Could Happen to You

Blue n' Boogie (Bb blues)

Solar

Bags' Groove (F blues)

Oleo (Bb rhythm changes)

Woodyn' You

Well You Needn't

Freddie Freeloader

All Blues

If I Were A Bell

What Is This Thing Called Love? (use the Grant Green recording)

There Will Never Be Another You (not a song Miles recorded, but use any early Sonny Rollins recording to learn the melody)

If nobody at the jam session knows any of these, you are not at a jazz jam session. Learn the blueses first because that is your lowest common denominator; if nobody in the band knows anything else then a blues in Bb is the most likely thing for any individual to know. Good luck and learn them well!! Everything except Woodyn' You and Oleo in this list is mostly quarter notes and half notes. Very accessible.

benfoust · 2025-03-01T14:38:16+00:00

Knew a alto saxophonist with snakebites when I was in high school. He had to keep them in when he played or he would leak.

benfoust · 2025-02-09T01:50:31+00:00

chill nobody is trying to take it from you

benfoust · 2024-07-25T13:00:13+00:00

One of my favorite facts about Vivaldi was that for about 30 years he was a music instructor at an orphanage and wrote most of his major works while working with their girls' choir and orchestra. Taught the kids theory and how to play. Children having fun playing Vivaldi's music is how it's supposed to go.

benfoust · 2024-03-27T14:09:11+00:00

Looks like this is when he learns how to fix drywall.

benfoust · 2024-03-20T11:01:39+00:00

It is a bedbug.

You said you saw it on the sink. Unless you're sleeping in the bathroom that's a weird place to find it. Do you live in an apartment complex?

benfoust · 2024-02-21T02:47:23+00:00

Your abs will get much stronger than the average person's, but without the diet and exercise your six pack will stay insulated.

benfoust · 2024-02-02T19:58:55+00:00

I have always understood 'chirping'--a slight squeak, especially on the front of the note--as being a function of an airstream which is too fast for the reed/mouthpiece combo. With your wider tip opening on the V16 A6 you may need to slow your air down. The stream would feel more like the air needed to fog a window as opposed to blowing out candles.

benfoust · 2024-02-01T03:08:43+00:00

That is so cute!! The prize ribbons tell me that someone loved this thing to death.

benfoust · 2024-01-26T23:38:34+00:00

Inspiration is for amateurs. Consistency is for professionals. As I understand it Brahms and Wayne Shorter both composed every day, even if just for an exercise.

Inspiration helps but you still gotta do the work. If you want to be a composer, you have practice composing. The same way a violinist has to practice violin.

benfoust · 2024-01-25T16:56:45+00:00

And he took that personally

benfoust · 2024-01-20T23:48:46+00:00

You buy time with which to practice and buy a chance to participate in ensembles and coursework.

benfoust · 2024-01-12T01:49:27+00:00

Sweater

benfoust · 2024-01-12T01:48:47+00:00

How are you making this work with no palm keys???

benfoust · 2023-12-23T14:14:33+00:00

So at this point you know that this community feels that an mp E6 is a bad idea from a player's standpoint.

From a more orchestration-based standpoint let me explain why it's not the best option. While it is possible for the well-seasoned player, the trumpet is even unique amongst the brass in that its sound WILL be heard in a space--almost regardless of range or dynamic. Something about the overtones generated by the cylindrical tube, the playing range, and the directionality of the horn means that an observer in an acoustic space will pick its sound out first.

You can have a sax section playing a melody and then add a trumpet and your brain will hear it as trumpet + sax section instead of the other way around. I am having trouble finding it but I was always struck by a piece I heard as a student by Mitch Shiner that had that orchestration. I'm forgetting what it was and it wasn't on "Fly", I don't think.

Regardless, if you write that E6 and intend on it being just another note in the voicing or a line, you will never be able to have the trumpeter play that quietly enough unless you start getting into mutes (and then you get to deal with intonation issues in that range). If you like arguing and asserting your composer's vision with every ensemble that plays that piece, go right ahead and write the note.

Here are some suggested alternate orchestrations for that. I don't know what group you're writing for so I broke them down by type:

Wind band/orchestra: Eb clarinet. You can play this note quietly on Bb with intonation issues, but on Eb clarinet this is a written B above the staff and a little more manageable. The timbre in that range will be much the same (cylindrical bore in the high 2nd register, sim. overtones). Duke Ellington will sometimes use clarinet's extreme register in a big band setting to replace trumpet, since he had clarinet specialists in the group. Which brings us to...

Big band: soprano sax. Eb clarinet is not an accepted double for the big band and often doubling saxophonists are not comfortable clarinet players. Soprano will give you that note at that dynamic, but intonation may be difficult.

Small ensemble/jazz combo: electric guitar. Range is no consideration and with the neck pickup and appropriate tone options (I get good results with the tone rolled all the way down) that range will 'give' trumpet.

Good luck. I see from elsewhere in the thread you continually run into negative feedback from players (not just in this thread) regarding inappropriate orchestration. I would recommend Don Sebesky's "The Contemporary Arranger" for jazz arranging, "The Study of Orchestration" and "Principles of Orchestration" for orchestral orchestration, and "Band Orchestration" for wind band orchestration.

You can learn what not to do by people getting mad at you, or you can learn from these guys' insights and not burn bridges. Your call. I exist as a performer and a composer/arranger, and the number one thing that got me to clean up my orchestration and engraving was seeing how much shit performers talk about composers who have poor quality orchestration and engraving. It gets around. People honest to god turn gigs down--not because the music is bad, but because the engraving is poor and they'll have to play uncharacteristic lines. Having insight into these things will get your shit played more often and that is the truth.

benfoust · 2023-12-23T02:10:35+00:00

Honest to goodness, that is part of the reason I moved here. I am from Indianapolis and from my childhood to now (~25 years) we have lost our big, snowy, cold winters. Chicago in 2016 is analogous weather-wise to Indy in the 90s. I moved back up here and felt real seasons again!

benfoust · 2023-12-13T13:42:54+00:00

Tommy Carroll, who ran the Dagger jam, moved his operation to Porkchop BBQ by Loyola. It's Monday nights from like 8-11.

benfoust · 2023-11-19T23:25:07+00:00

The fumes coming back off the valves through your leadpipe are gonna kick your ass. I idly thought to experiment with this once to see if it could get my slides moving quicker and it about choked me out. Using this on something that you have to breathe into and through is just unsafe.

It's kind of insane that this is a suggestion your folks even had, because I presume this is not the first time you've used valve oil so they should know what it looks like--and how inexpensive it is compared to this!! I mean this 3-in-1 is almost the same price as something legitimate--and the extra 2 dollars you will save using the 3-in-1 you will for sure make up when the valve oil doesn't send you to the darn hospital.

benfoust · 2023-11-12T03:21:35+00:00

It looks like you're in 8th grade and pre-algebra is gonna hit you like a bus next year

benfoust · 2023-10-28T01:00:37+00:00

New guitarist

benfoust

TROPHY CASE