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CHAPTER 21
THE COMPOSERS AND ARRANGERS |
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*It all starts with the soloist. What he plays today the arranger writes tomorrow." -Tony Scott |
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Once the premise is accepted that jazz can be composed and arranged, a postulate once rejected by experts but now accepted by most, it becomes necessary to assess the similarities and disÂtinctions between composition and arrangement. These are two of the most misunderstood terms in jazz; the layman is aware of the first and vaguely conscious of the second, while even the musician at times tends to confuse the terms.
The composer (etymologically, together-putter) assembles a group of notes horizontally on the manuscript paper, or interprets them with voice or instrument, to form a melodic line pleasing to the ear. The arranger's task clearly is more complex, since he is charged with the orchestration (scoring) of a composition in such a manner that the voicing of the instruments, vertically, is no less attractive than the melodic line; in many instances the arranger himself devises the melody and orchestrates it more or less simultaneously. Even when he is scoring a melody created by another writer, he may invest it with all the qualities of harÂmonic and rhythmic subtlety, of variations on the theme, that lead to the creation of a successful jazz performance. Thus, in effect, whether he wrote the original line or not, the arranger always is also a composer. The converse is not true. Some writers of melodies have no laiowledge of orchestration or, even if they |
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