Jim Olsen: News

Well, it looks as if there will be some sleepless nights in my near future. I've got to write 2 new pieces for Swing Shift's June concert, as well as arrange a blues by one of my former students. One new tune, "On the Downhill Side," is almost done. It's kind of a Mingus-y blues sort of thing, with some different textures. The next piece will attempt to combine the band with looping software written by our Ryan Chaney, our lead trombonist.

As if that wasn't enough for one semester, A3 has the jazz pianist Deanna Witkowski and 3 members of Chamber Music Amici coming to perform on our Spring concert. It looks like I'll need to come up with something that will feature all of them with the A3 Group.

Oh, and two of my students have a recital in May, and they are both composing things for me to play, which means I'll need to do some practicing, too.

To work!

Just had a great concert with Swing Shift and special guests Holly Hofmann (flute) and Mike Wofford (piano). Both of our guests were fantastic players and great people.

We did a couple of my arrangements on the show, including one of Faure's "Pavane" that featured Holly on alto flute. I haven't made it available for sale yet, but plan to do so this summer. It's not particularly difficult and could be adapted for a wide range of guest soloists.

We also played my chart on "Blues in the Closet," which is available through this site. The big change for the concert was that we featured Holly, me and all of our saxes doubling flute during the tune. Treble clef silliness!

Next up are some new pieces for my school group, as well as an original for Swing Shift's June 24th concert.

I had the opportunity to hear lots of great music this weekend; Swing Shift performed at Jazz at Newport, and a number of us went over a day early to catch some of the other concerts. Jeremy Pelt, John Clayton, Holly Hofmann, Bill Cunliffe; all of them were fantastic. Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was drummer Alvester Garnett , who was a model of interactive support in every setting.

Swing Shift closed the festival Sunday afternoon, and we were lucky enough to have a few of the festival headliners sit in with us. Houston Person was, as usual, the epitome of swing. He's so smooth and graceful that you almost miss how good he is. Then again, everyone who sat in (Pelt, Hofmann, Cunliffe, Bruce Forman) was great. Thanks!

I'm dropping in here for a short update on what's going on with Jim Olsen Music these days. It's summer, so I'm using the break from school as a chance to work on some music of my own. Right now, I'm in the midst of a commission from the Oregon Percussion Ensemble. It will honor Charles Dowd, the longtime head of the percussion program at the UO, who passed away earlier this year. I'm really having a lot of fun writing this piece; the approach has required me to make some additions to my compositional language, which is always a good thing.

Next up is transcribing some or all of "Freedom Now" by Max Roach, which I need for my A3 ensemble this Fall. After that, it looks like some arrangements for an upcoming Swing Shift concert are on the agenda. We have the flutist Holly Hofmann and pianist Mike Wofford playing with us in February, and we have to generate some material for the concert.

So, what with one thing and another, I haven't mentioned any of my recent composing/arranging projects. Most of them won't be published, simply because there is so little market for highly specific instrumentation, but they've still been fun.

The first piece of note was an adaptation of the music from the Looney Tunes cartoon "What's Opera, Doc." I had to adapt Milt Franklyn's adaptation of Richard Wagner's music for the small ensemble that I coach at my high school. It's not an easy task, reducing full orchestra scores for a group comprised of flute, cello, 2 keyboards, electric bass and drums, but things turned out much better than I expected. We'll premiere the results in a couple of weeks.

Another project involved a collaboration between Swing Shift and Chamber Music Amici. We were both asked to perform at a concert, and decided that it would be fun to play a couple of pieces together. This brought about arrangements of "Eleanor Rigby" and Gabriel Faure's "Pavane" for the big band plus 2 violins and oboe. Unfortunately, the concert was cancelled, so we have yet to perform these charts. Still, I'm quite happy with how they turned out, and suspect that we'll find a way to get them in front of the public.

As if that weren't enough, I'm now in the midst of a Christmas medley for my high school ensemble. We always try to have fun with this, so the tunes are often distorted beyond all hope of repair. This should eat up any free time that I have during our Thanksgiving break!

Hey, everyone, I am back at work! The Master's program is finally over, and I'm trying to make up for lost writing time. I recently finished a very different version of "Basin Street Blues," which Swing Shift will premier on October 16th.

"What's Opera, Doc," an arrangement of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, is in my sketchbook and will be performed by the A3 Group in December.

Next up, a couple of pieces for Swing Shift and a trio of 2 violins and oboe, for a November show.

This is just my apology for not updating this site more frequently. Between teaching, an M.A.T. program and my home life, there's just not a lot of time left for adding to this site right now.

I do want to thank everyone who has purchased CDs from CDBaby; I appreciate your support and hope that you enjoy the music.

I really do intend to make some changes to these pages, but that will have to wait until a more opportune moment.

Until then, thanks so much!

School's out! Well, at least I'm away from A3 for the summer. (There's still that pesky Master's program to consider.)

At any rate, it's time to put the office back in order after 9 months of chaos, as well as do some thinking about new music. It looks like Swing Shift's next project will involve a lot of Basie and Sinatra tunes, so I won't have much writing to do for that show.

That means that I can think about some new directions for my own music. I wrote a piece for soprano sax and piano for our A3 Artist recital at the beginning of the month, and it got me thinking about a longer work for the same combination.

I'm not sure where the music will go, only that it's time to face the piano and compose.

Stay tuned!

If you weren't able to attend, you missed a really fun concert by Swing Shift last Friday night (April 11th). The band sounded great, and our guest soloists brought down the house. Idit Shner and Jesse Cloninger are wonderful players, and we're lucky to have them living in Eugene.

As I write this, I'm up to my ears in teaching and working on my Master's in teaching (huh?). I'm still trying to make a little time to compose; I have to come up with something for the A3 faculty artist recital in June and am thinking about writing a piece for sax and pre-recorded sounds. The couple of ideas that I've jotted down sound a little like techno-noise. One of my students told me that it sounded like video game music.

At any rate, there might be some new sounds emerging from the pen before long. Stay tuned!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have not forgotten about this site. Things have been even more hectic than usual lately, which has eliminated most of my free time.

At any rate, check the calendar for details of Swing Shift's April 11th concert. I'll be back as soon with some new arrangements and perhaps news about an upcoming recording project.

Check the "Buy" page for a new listing. I've added my arrangement of Oscar Pettiford's "Blues in the Closet," a fun, not very demanding chart that provides a good breather from more challenging tunes. There's no recording yet, but I hope to have one available soon.

Different time, same excuse: Things have been so busy in the last month (the final weeks of our 1st trimester at A3, the 1st weeks of the new one), that nothing has appeared on this site. You have my apologies. I'm going to try to add some new content during my time off. I promise!

Well, it's been some time since I last put anything up on this site. Without going into details, the last few months have been much busier than I expected. A lot of projects have been put on the back burner, including some additions that I want to make here.

At any rate, I'm going to try to add a couple of new tunes to the "Buy" section of this site in the next couple of weeks. There won't be any recordings to listen to for a while; these are brand-new arrangements that have yet to see a performance.

So, be on the lookout for some new material. It's coming, I promise!

Finally, some new tunes! Check out the "Music" and "Buy" pages for several new additions to the catalog. I've added 5 new charts, including another original and 4 arrangements.

"Hummin'," "My Funny Valentine," "The Acme..." and "Every Day" were all recorded by the Lamont Jazz Orchestra, directed by Lynn Baker. They did a great job with the charts. "Manteca" was recorded by Swing Shift, the band I direct.

Most of these would have to be considered a grade 4 in terms of difficulty, but a couple of them, "Manteca" and "Acme" in particular, are playable by good high school bands. The ranges are reasonable (D's and E flats in the lead tpt. part), the only double is soprano sax in the lead alto part and there aren't any extra musical demands for anyone.

These charts have all been performed numerous times, and they always go over well. Bands enjoy the interesting and challenging parts, and audiences really love the final results. Listen to the sound clips and then pick up some new music for your next concert!