Randy Pingrey – Solo Trombone
St. John’s Church in Jamaica Plain
May 6th, 2010
VLADIMIR: (without anger). It’s not certain. ESTRAGON: No, nothing is certain. (Vladimir slowly crosses the stage and sits down beside Estragon.) # VLADIMIR: We can still part, if you think it would be better. ESTRAGON: It’s not worthwhile now. (Silence.) VLADIMIR: No, it’s not worthwhile now. (Silence.) ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go? VLADIMIR: Yes, let’s go. (They do not move.) -
Samuel Beckett
Filed under Beckett, Solo Trombone
An evening with The Olson Pingrey Quartet – April 24th, 2010
La Luna Cafe – Cambridge, MA
First Set:
Deed I Do by Fred Rose, arranged by Kathy Olson
Stone Age Rhumba by Randy Pingrey
Sangfroid by Kathy Olson
Gary’s Notebook by Lee Morgan, arranged by Kathy Olson
Stella by Starlight by Victor Young (no trombone)
Tygart Valley by Kathy Olson
Second Set:
High Contrast by Randy Pingrey
Reverie by Kathy Olson
Take the A Train by Billy Strayhorn (no bari)
Low Contrast by Randy Pingrey
Kathy Olson - bari sax
Randy Pingrey – trombone
Chad Gray – bass
Austin McMahon – drums
High Contrast is a new tune – check out the score right here (pdf file).
It is the second of a series of three “contrast” tunes. The third tune, No Contrast, has yet to be completed, but will probably be played at the next Olson Pingrey Quartet gig.
Kathy and I had a wonderful time, and we hope you enjoy the performance. Chad and Austin tore it up, didn’t they? Thank you for listening!
Filed under Jazz
Listen to past performances here and here. We’re really looking forward to playing, and there will be some new tunes!
Filed under Jazz
Randy Pingrey Trio – March 23rd 2010
Four Decembers (previously performed here)
Randy Pingrey: trombone
James Wylie: alto sax
Ezra Weller: trumpet
Look at the score to Stupor (pdf).
The RPT performed as part of the third Boston Comprovised concert. As always, our very sincere thanks goes out to Dan VanHassel and Travis Alford for having us play. Thanks guys!
Stupor was a totally new composition for the trio, and it’s the first, cautious, step into writing more traditionally notated material. Like many of my peers, the music of Steve Lacy has been a really eye-opening influence, and the new tune is a little tip of the hat to Mr. Lacy.
As always, thank you very much for listening!
Randy Pingrey – trombone
Peter Negroponte – drums
Recorded Saturday, March 27th in Boston, MA at NEC
As for his feet, sometimes he wore on each a sock, or on the one a sock and on the other a stocking, or a boot, or a shoe, or a slipper, or a sock and a boot, or a sock and a shoe, or a sock and a slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a stocking, or on the one a stocking and on the other a boot, or a shoe, or a slipper, or a sock and a boot, or a sock and shoe, or a sock and slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a boot, or on the one a boot and on the other a shoe, or a slipper, or a sock and boot, or a sock and shoe, or a sock and slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometime he wore on each a shoe, or on the one a shoe and on the other a slipper, or a sock and boot, or a sock and shoe, or a sock and slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a slipper, or on the one a slipper and on the other a sock and boot, or a sock and shoe, or a sock and slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometime he wore on each a sock and boot, or on the one a sock and boot and on the other a sock and shoe, or a sock and slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a sock and shoe, or on the one a sock and shoe and on the other a sock and slipper, or a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a sock and slipper, or on the one a sock and slipper and on the other a stocking and boot, or a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a stocking and boot, or on the one a stocking and boot and on the other a stocking and shoe, or a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometime he wore on each a stocking and shoe, or on the one a stocking and shoe and on the other a stocking and slipper, or nothing at all. And sometimes he wore on each a stocking and slipper, or on the one a stocking and slipper and on the other nothing at all. And sometimes he went barefoot. -Samuel Beckett
Randy Pingrey Trio/Quartet at the Kaji Aso Studio
Scribe - for Morton Feldman
Thriving - for Anton Webern
Short Notes - for Anthony Braxton
Grock (Solo Trombone) – for Luciano Berio
Long Notes - for Anthony Braxton
Four Decembers - for Earle Brown
Randy Pingrey – trombone
Ezra Weller – trumpet
Chris Veilleux – alto sax, flute
and special guest – Kathy Olson – flute
On March 7th, the Randy Pingrey Trio +1 opened for Shaw Pong Liu’s amazing Ligeti string quartet project. I couldn’t have been happier with the way the evening turned out – Ezra, Chris, and Kathy all played amazingly (check out the end of Short Notes for some pretty sick ensemble playing), and it was the first time I heard Ligeti’s first String Quartet (it was stunning). As always, thank you very much for listening!
Filed under Appreciations, Jazz, Solo Trombone, Trio
I wrote this handout for a class Kathy and I did at UVA last week. I hope you enjoy it (pdfs are at the bottom of the post, if that’s more your style). Special thanks goes to John D’earth and everyone else in the Jazz program at UVA. Kathy and I had an amazing time!
PDF Files:
Rhythm Section Basics page 1
Rythm Section Basics page 2
Filed under Jazz
Randy Pingrey – Alone
Come Sunday - solo piano
Randy Pingrey – all instruments and arrangements (except for Deed I Do, which is based on a Kathy Olson arrangement)
I recorded these tracks over the past few months using a small digital four-track device. It started out as something that I was doing just for fun, but eventually I realized that I had pull together a few of my favorite tracks to release here. I hope you enjoy it!
Filed under Jazz
While at NEC, I was fortunate enough to study for a year with the famed trombonist-extraordinare Robin Eubanks. For a while, I was bringing in Charlie Parker solos to work on with him, and in one of our lessons he said (and I’m paraphrasing here):
You know, someone should take some time to transpose these solos up a fourth. They’re really in the pumpin’ register.
After you take a second to chuckle at the phrase “pumpin’ register”, let me explain what he meant: When trombone players practice Parker’s solos (say, from the Omnibook or from their own transcription), we play what Parker played, but down an octave. Unfortunately, the ”money register” for a saxophone tends to skew lower on the instrument’s available tessitura than what is common for the average jazz trombonist. As a result, here is what a trombone player looks at when they try to play a Charlie Parker solo:
To a jazz trombonist, the preceding excerpt, although playable, doesn’t really lay in an idiomatic fashion on the horn. When a trombone is played in its lower register, all of the slide positions are further apart compared to the closer positions of the higher register. In other words, what Robin meant by “pumpin’ register”, is that the solo is just too damn low and one has to move the slide too much. Bebop is already hard enough on the trombone, and the range that trombonists play Parker’s solos in certainly doesn’t make these tricky solos any easier. Here is what the same excerpt looks like when it’s transposed up a fourth:
Now we’re talking! The range is much more reflective of what jazz trombonists actually play. So, I went ahead and I transposed the whole solo up a perfect fourth, just like Robin suggested. Here, take a look and listen for yourself:
Moose the Mooche (pdf file)
The benefits are pretty clear – I’ve been working on the solo for about a week, and the bebop vocabulary feels much better suited to my instrument. I suppose one could argue that it would be more valuable to study Parker’s solos at the original pitch, but I’ve always thought that the jazz tradition is ours to play with, so why not?
I also went ahead and did the same thing to Parker’s solo on Donna Lee. Check it out too:
Birds Solo on Donna Lee (pdf file)
(I haven’t had the time to work on this solo, so I can’t totally swear by its accuracy, and there’s not yet an audio file for me to post. Besides, it’s really, really hard…)
So anyways, feel free to download these solos, and share them with your trombone playing friends!
Filed under Jazz
A new year has come and Trombonist-at-Large has a new look. I’m pretty excited about it, but there are still a few kinks to be worked out. If you really like the change (or really don’t like it), let me know. Feedback is always deeply appreciated. The site is around 8 months old now, and I’ve really enjoyed developing it to this point. It’s work I don’t plan on giving up on anytime soon!
Many apologies for the lack of updates recently – right after the holidays I started working at Berklee College of Music, and I’ve been a little overwhelmed with beginning-semester administrative issues. I’m guessing things will slow down a tad soon, and I’ll make it a goal to document my work more here at Trombonist-at-Large.
Filed under Update
