I am so thrilled to have completed the recording of my upcoming album, and I wanted to share with you how it went! Our last recording happened on Friday, August 16, 2024! From the beginning of this project, I knew the album would have eight charts – something close to 50 minutes of music – and I also knew that I didn’t want to simply use some of my “old” charts; I wanted the music to feel fresh and newly written for this group; so, I spent a good part of my summer “break” composing.
Of course, this was more than simply writing the music: I was also deciding the direction of the album. Is it mainly Brazilian music? Mainly straight-ahead jazz? A little of both? Any other influences to consider? How about the strengths of this particular group of musicians – what should I highlight and how?
My previous jazz orchestra album (Infância, Cassio Vianna Jazz Orchestra, 2017) featured charts that I had written over a certain period of time – probably three years or so. What is interesting about this new album is that there is a wider range of composition dates (one composition is from 2008, another from 2011, and the most recent from just one month before the recording session), but these particular arrangements were written within a very short period of time, mostly this year and for this particular group, which makes this album even more personal and intentional. For me, composing/arranging several charts back to back and then heading straight into the studio without trying the music beforehand was a great exercise! It turned out to be an honest and clear musical picture of this moment in my life.
As soon as I wrote the final piece in July – a ballad called “Mistlike” – I sent all the parts to the musicians, which gave them a month to practice before the session. For the rhythm section, I prepared a MIDI track that included a click track and synthesized horns (saxes, trumpets and trombones), so that they could practice with some basic idea of the overall arrangements – not the prettiest thing to listen to, but it worked!
It is so important to have a solid rhythm section! I have been very blessed to have Brian Monroney, David Joyner, Clipper Anderson, Wagner Trindade, and Mark Ivester on the album. These folks almost don't ask any questions; maybe just a “what do you think of this?” while showing me something cool they came up with. When the horn players came to the session with their parts learned, everything fell into place nicely. There was some beautiful magic happening!
For this final recording session, there were a couple of personnel changes: Jeff Chang replaced Mark Taylor on the 2nd alto sax chair, while Jared Hall replaced Michael Van Bebber in the trumpet section (both due to schedule conflicts). This brings the total of musicians performing on this album up to 21! Side note: I should point out that Jared played a gorgeous flugelhorn solo on the newly composed “Mistlike.” There are so many great soloists in this group, I regret not having recorded more charts to be able to feature every one of them!
Another important addition on this session was Jeff Busch on percussion, playing on three of the charts; his vast knowledge of Brazilian music styles and his excellent Portuguese made the session very fun for me!
As for the musical direction, now I know that the album will feature mostly Brazilian music, but there’s also a bebop chart (no contradiction there, I’ll write more about that later); and there’s also some music that is stylistically more difficult to classify.
Though the most important part – the recording -- is done, there’s still a bit of a journey ahead to complete the album. I’m starting a new academic year this week – my 7th year teaching at Pacific Lutheran University and my 1st as Associate Professor of Music – and I expect the production process to slow down a bit, as we move into the final editing and mixing phases.
I have started working on the art cover with two very talented artists from Rio de Janeiro – the brothers Daniel and André Barreto – who did an excellent work on Infância. We have decided the album title and its main concept; I'm beginning to write the liner notes while they are starting to send me ideas for the cover art. I absolutely love this part of the process, and I’m fighting the urge to share those ideas publicly! Not yet, not yet!
The plan remains to have the final CD printed by December / January. Those who have contributed to our funding campaign will be the first to receive the CD, and I will keep sharing news about the process on this blog and on social media, as it unfolds.
The campaign keeps running on my website. There’s still a lot of high costs ahead and, as many of you know, CDs don’t sell much these days. So, if you’re a fan of my work, you can help me complete this project by pre-ordering a CD and by sharing this information with your like-minded friends.
Thank you for reading and for supporting my work! More soon!
Abraços,
-Cassio