Arranging MJ's Thriller for Big Band

acglass

acglass

So yesterday the director of Bands at my college (Dr. Colonna) talked about wanting to do a tribute to Michael Jackson as an artist and I volunteered myself to do some arranging. The director specifically wants to see Thriller and mentioned it could even be a medley. We talked a bit about Buddy Rich and Maynard Ferguson and some of their pop to Jazz arrangements and I was good to go. I threw out the concept to do a medley pretty quick since I really feel the only place in the world where medleys belong is at the opening of a musical (but this project could become a suite someday.)

So, I have all of my thoughts down on paper with the jazzed up melodies, counter point and all the hits and what-not but I keep on coming back to the voicing for the trumpets in the intro/chorus. I tried throwing a 7th in there as well as a 6th (hey, why not, right) and I think I'm just stuck using triads. Any thoughts on how this could be improved?

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No, the original Key is B Maj and I droped it to Ab Maj because of the range for the trumpets.
 
I should probably point out to all our arranging friends out there, the concern I have with this line is that the 4th trumpet is in effect playing the 1st trumpet line an octave lower, which means those jazz bands with a 5th trumpet doubling the 1st 's sheet music an octave lower won't have any part to play, in essence this will cause a doubling of the lower octave part. Any solutions?
 
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I'm not particularly familiar with the song (old fogey!), but there is nothing wrong with keeping it simple. You could write rest for the 5th trumpet part, or double one of the inner parts if it needs to be more prominent. In many cases, unison or unison octaves can be a powerful effect.

Unless there are some wild alterations of the chords in a tune, I usually write the 4th trumpet an octave below the lead. I struggle more with writing bone parts, since I lot of bands I play in only use 3 bones - lead, 2nd and bass. I never know whether to try to squeeze a 3rd bone part in between the 2nd and bass, or make it optional and write below the bass.
 
acglass said:
I should probably point out to all our arranging friends out there, the concern I have with this line is that the 4th trumpet is in effect playing the 1st trumpet line an octave lower, which means those jazz bands with a 5th trumpet doubling the 1st 's shhet music an octave lower won't have any part to play, in essence this will cause a doubling of the lower octave part. Any solutions?
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When there's four parts, one player should sit out...ergo, not your problem.

In any case, doubling of the melody part rarely sounds wrong.

When you're dealing with a piece as well known as this, you're best to stay close to the original, or REALLY reharmonize it.
 
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Cool, I really appreciate the feed back saxhound and Merlin. I feel a lot more comfortable with the part as it is now. I'll upload an audio of the finished work once it's available. I have the goal to make it a tight jazz chart, even if you never heard the original pop song, but if you have you'll still recognize and feel that all your favorite lines are there (minus Vincent Price who is being replaced by a solo section.)
 
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