Miles Davis, Gil Evans

New Rhumba

Largely based off of pianist Ahmad Jamal's original recording, Gil Evans' arrangement of 'New Rhumba' serves as an outstanding vehicle for Jamal's devoted musical disciple, trumpeter Miles Davis, throughout. The arrangement starts off with a powerful opening four bars from the brass, followed by a disarmingly demure injunction from an ensemble of trumpet, alto sax, flute, 2 horns in F and tuba. The bassist provides solo fills between all of the gaps throughout the introduction. The dynamic contrast between these dueling riffs needs to be addressed with exact precision in order to draw out maximum emotional impact. The solo trumpet states the playful melody beginning at the pickup into measure 17. The accompanying hits from the horns and low brass should be present, but not overwhelming at this point. The entire ensemble joins in during measure 27 with some warmly orchestrated backgrounds before the melody is turned over to the woodwinds at measure 35. The arrangement becomes strictly a vessel for the trumpet soloist beginning at measure 43, where a stop-time call and response between the trumpet and various groupings of the rest of the ensemble hark back to the Jamal original, where Jamal and guitarist Ray Crawford engage in a similar tête–à–tête. This continues for two choruses (with regular time and the full ensemble rejoining on the bridge). The final A section of the second chorus (beginning at measure 99) directly references Crawford's original hard-riffing solo in the horns and trombones. Regular time resumes for the 3rd and 4th solo chorus, which begins at measure 107 and features some stabbing background hits from the trombones and one horn. The arrangement continues at this amenable moderate pace until the full ensemble briefly re-enters at measure 144 for a sudden and brief dissonant build up, once again mimicking Jamal's original performance. The solo finishes out with a re-statement of the arrangement's introduction at measure 171. The melody is never re-stated, instead making use of a swiftly executed figure in the solo trumpet and woodwinds and closing off with a unison ensemble blast that features some high note trumpet acrobatics (courtesy of Ernie Royal on the original recording). This arrangement is for jazz orchestra featuring four woodwinds, five trumpets, two horns in F, four trombones, tuba, bass and drums. The woodwind parts are written for alto saxophone, flute (doubling on piccolo), oboe and bass clarinet. We sincerely hope you enjoy playing this arrangement as much as we enjoyed preparing it for you!