This will be a lesson on basic arranging for Jazz. We’ll take the standard “Stella By Starlight”. Please familiarize yourself with the song if you aren’t already:
Now we’ll take a look at the song in a ‘Fake Book’. Here is an excerpt:
I took the fake book notes and chords and produced a simple piano arrangement. This isn’t intended to sound amazing, it’s intended to sound basic.
The chord symbols run across the top of the treble clef. On top of the bass clef, you’ll see intervals (1..7) which tell you how the current chord relates to the tonic or root of the piece which in this case is in Bb.
From here it is possible to produce a basic Brass Quintet arrangement. Recall that brass quintets have 5 horns in them: Trumpet-I (melody usually), Trumpet-II (Soprano Harmony), Horn in F (French Horn)(Tenor Harmony), Trombone (Alto/Baritone Harmony) and Tuba (Bass Harmony).
This arrangement was produced by taking the root of every chord and giving it to the Tuba. The second lowest note of every chord was given to the Trumpet. Next, the 5ths or 7ths depending on the chord were given to the Horn in F (they’re marked as to which was given). Then the top harmony trumpet, Trumpet-II (second from top) gets the top of every chord. If it’s a 13th chord, Trumpet-II gets the 13th note. Following this simple recipe, a workable (but basic) Brass Quintet arrangement is produced (piano is muted, simulated instruments are so-so, use your imagination):
From here, more advanced composition/arranging techniques could be used to bring this arrangement to life. This however, represents a solid starting point from which to complete any arrangement.
For a Jazz sound it’s best to start with a jazz arrangement. Jazz arrangements make use of several factors which are lessons unto themselves. Here is a jazz piano arrangement of “Autumn Leaves”
This piano arrangement was taken from:
This piano arrangement has been excerpted for study:
This piano arrangement makes use of:
– syncopation
– rootless and boxed chords
– jazz arpeggios / runs / licks
– melody/harmony call and answer
Using this jazz arrangement as a base for arranging a Brass quintet, like before, we distribute the notes according to register and we produce this jazz quintet arrangement:
