Masterproef

Jennifer El Gammal 2012-2013

Jazz Saxophone Tutor: John Ruocco

Table of contents
Part 1 - Final Concert
1.1. Line-up & programme 1.2. On the choice of the tunes 02 03

Part 2 - Portfolio
2.1. Alone Together - Paul Desmond 2.2. The Shadow Of Your Smile - Oliver Nelson 2.3. Life as it is - Toon Roos 2.4. Nicas Dream - Hank Mobley 05 10 15 18

Part 3 - Logbook
3.1. Education 3.2. Personal approach to music 3.3. Projects 3.4. Sources of inspiration 23 23 24 25

Part 4 - Appendix: Transcriptions

Part 1 - Final Concert

1.1. Line-up & programme
Line-up Uivati Trio : Jennifer El Gammal: soprano saxophone David Thomaere: piano Mike Delaere: double bass

Programme Romska Elegija Presque 23 + Presque 24 Dream On As far as I can see Untitled Bulgur Milan Zaklov, arr. Uivati Trio Jennifer El Gammal Christophe Wallemme Hadi El Gammal David Thomaere Traditional, arr. Uivati Trio

1.2. On the choice of the tunes

I decided to play this nal exam with the project I started a year and a half ago: Uivati Trio. Indeed, it is my main project at the moment, and it seems to me that it reects particularly well the results of my research as a musician these past few years. Our repertoire is a mix of original compositions and eastern european traditional tunes we arrange collectively. For this exam, I made a selection of tunes that I believe give some insight into our work as a trio, and I organised them in an order that made sense to me from a musical point of view, one leading to another in a consistent yet progressive build up.

To start the concert, I chose a festive, joyous tune, Romske Elegija. This song is emblematic of the spirit I want to instil in this project: a spirit of jubilant, convivial sharing, through a music rooted in tradition, that can hopefully touch and move just about any listener regardless of whether or not he/she is a musician. I placed this tune at the very beginning of the concert to immediately give the tone of our concert.

The second tune we are going to play is a composition of mine, Presque 23 (and its sequel, Presque 24). It is often said a tune says a lot about its composer, and I think this two-folded piece, which I composed partly during my rst, partly during my second master year, says a lot about me. Its rst part is a melancholic waltz that, I have been told, sounds like lm music. It reects the inuence of my fathers music, as well as that of Tuur Florizoone. The second, more modal part I composed as part of the Analysis course we had last year.

Dream on, which we will play next, is a composition of Christophe Wallemme. Even though it is the imposed piece for this exam, Im condent it

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will t quite well in our programme. Indeed, Christophe Wallemmes music, which often mixes jazz and world music inuences in a personal way, has inspired me with the development of my own project.

Fourthly, we will play a composition of my fathers, Hadi El Gammal, which Mike, David and I rearranged together in the course of our rehearsals. As far as I can see is thus a very good example of the results our joint work and research bring about: we changed the time signature and found different atmospheres for the different parts of the tune, hence turning it in a collective work.

The penultimate tune we will play on this occasion, interestingly enough entitled Untitled by its composer (David Thomaere), is one of our trios new tunes. It presents a nice blend of improvisation and written, contrapuntal melodies, which is one of the key features of the music I tend to listen to and develop myself.

Finally, Bulgur, is a traditional bulgarian melody in 7/8, which we superposed with a modern, more funky groove. I learned this melody years ago when playing with Gjovalin Nonaj, a Brussel-based Albanian accordion player. It stuck with me, and Uivati Trio seemed a perfect scene to try and use this material in a more personal and original manner. In this tune, I will also perform a short tap dancing interlude, thus introducing the blend of artistic forms that is central to my own artistic practice, and that I certainly plan on developing more and more over the coming years.

Part 2 - Portfolio
2.1. Alone Together - Paul Desmond
Title: Album: Artist: Recording Company: Date: Sidemen: Alone Together Take Ten Paul Desmond Radio Corporation of America (RCA) 1963 Jim Hall (guitar) Eugene Cherico (bass) Connie Kay (drums) Instrument: Tune type: Tempo: Key: Dramatic devices: Alto saxophone AABA (Jazz standard) Medium/fast D minor (Concert Key: C minor) Paul Desmond has a very gentle sound, and he plays melliuously yet with a lot of recurring rhythmical patterns Low to medium (on the soprano) Minor harmonic, Mixolydian b9b13

Tessiture: Scale preferences:

Recurrent patterns & development: Rather than using very few recurrent patterns, Paul Desmond constantly switches from one pattern to the other, playing around a little bit with each one (transposing it to the next few bars, reversing it,). I circled in blue each time this happens in the solo. Desmond uses often the same kind of approach (green circle), and often nishes on the upbeat. His solo quite scrupulously respects the structure (rarely playing a phrase across two choruses). He plays melodic waves rather than jumps, and he plays mostly diatonic lines, with a few chromaticisms, and often establishing a question/answer dynamic (red arrows).

Personal interest/gain: The simplicity and precision of Paul Desmonds sound and phrasing has always impressed me. Moreover, playing this solo helped me get out of my set ways while improvising on Alone together (and by extension, on other tunes), as it made me play new lines and in a different key. When working with this transcription, I wrote down a couple of Desmonds ideas and experienced with them in my own solos (see above), like the question & answer technique.

Jennifer El Gammal - Masterproef

Jennifer El Gammal - Masterproef

2.2. The Shadow Of Your Smile - Oliver Nelson

Title: Album: Artist: Recording Company: Date: Sidemen: The Shadow Of Your Smile Sound Pieces Oliver Nelson Impulse! 1966 Steve Kuhn (piano) Ron Carter (bass) Grady Tate (drums) Instrument: Tune type: Tempo: Key: Dramatic devices: Soprano saxophone ABAC (Jazz standard) Medium F Major (Concert Key: Eb Major) Oliver Nelson makes use of a glissando and other sound effects (orange circles). The alternating of slowish and really fast lines, as well as high pitched and lower patterns, also creates a dramatic effect. Low to high Melodic minor, mixolydian b9

Tessitura: Scale preferences:

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Recurrent Patterns & development: Oliver Nelson develops every pattern that comes up further than Paul Desmond did. Being an arranger himself, and the author of the book Patterns for Improvisation1, he constructs his solo very carefully, starting with a couple of very calm phrases and building up from there. He plays a lot with arpeggios, too, and with a very clear articulation. He also plays a little with the sound, making his soprano sing, as they say. On several occasions, he takes a small cell and loops it for a while before resolving the phrase. On the next pages, I circled in blue each time I spotted a pattern he played with, and used yellow boxes to emphasise scale patterns and loops (see comments on the score for the details)

Personal interest/gain: This solo is, in my view, a masterpiece of turning an arguably rather dull piece into something thrilling and beautiful. That in itself would have been a sufcient reason for me to transcribe it. In addition to this, however, Oliver Nelsons improvisation had the advantage of involving some work around patterns and dynamics which I found particularly interesting. The octave jumps and the long sustainment of a repeated pattern, sometimes throughout several bars, are the main gimmicks I tried to incorporate in my own playing, alongside the solo construction (building up from a very calm, spaced beginning) and his articulation.

NELSON Oliver, Patterns for improvisation, New York, Jamey Aerbersold Jazz, New Albany, 2010

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2.3. Life as it is - Toon Roos

Title: Album: Life as it is Ivan Paduart - A Night At the Music Village Toon Roos Jazz N Pulz 2003 Fay Claassen (vocals) Bert Joris (trumpet) Toots Thielemans (harmonica) Ivan Paduart (piano) Stefan Lievestro (bass) Mimi Verderame (drums) Instrument: Tune type: Tempo: Key: Dramatic devices: Tessitura: Scale preferences: Low to high Soprano saxophone AABA (solo on AA) Medium (straight eights) D minor

Artist: Recording Company: Date: Sidemen:

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Recurrent patterns & development: , and often establishing a question/answer dynamic (red arrows).

Personal interest/gain: n my own solos (see above), like the question & answer technique.

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2.4. Nicas Dream - Hank Mobley

Title: Album: Messengers Artist: Recording Company: Date: Sidemen: Nicas Dream Art Blakey with the Original Jazz

Hank Mobley Columbia Records 1956 Donald Byrd (trumpet) Art Blakey (drums) Horace Silver (piano) Doug Watkins (bass)

Instrument: Tune type: and between solos) Tempo: Key: Dramatic devices: Tessitura: Scale preferences:

Tenor saxophone AABA + 8 bar interlude (after the theme

Medium/fast C minor (Concert Key: Bb minor) Not many; use

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Recurrent patterns & development:

Personal interest/gain: Questions/rponses, lots of space, chromaticisms, nishes often on the beat, 4 bar structure (beginning) Beaucoup en croches mais entrecoupes, Rhythmically plus riche

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Part 3 - Logbook
3.1. Education (2011-2013)
Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (KCB) Master 1 & 2 : One-to-one lessons with John Ruocco Master 1: Ensemble with Jeroen Van Herzeele Master 2: Ensemble with Diederik Wissels

Universit Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) Master 1 & 2 in Sociology (option: Action Sociale et Diversit Culturelle) Master thesis: Cultural Activism (artivism) Today: The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

3.2. Personal approach to music

Over my years at the conservatory, it became clearer and clearer to me that, as important a part of my life as playing the soprano saxophone is, it is but a part of my musical personality. Indeed, I also play the trombone and the diatonic accordion, and these are also important elements of my personal approach to music. The trombone I started playing seven years ago as part of a big fanfare, Jour de Fte, then in a bigband and in an orchestra at Sussex University (UK). I also played trombone in the KCB Bigband in my rst and second years of the Bachelor, and this school year. Trombone playing is to me
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a perfect complement to practicing the soprano saxophone, as the two instruments are almost perfectly opposite: high vs low register, wind vs brass, keys vs slide Experimenting with the trombone thus opens up a new dimension of music and enables me to test a different take on the same tunes, thereby enriching my understanding of them.

The diatonic accordion, on the other hand, has been for the past ve years my preferred means of exploring traditional folk music (as in folk balls), that is popular music designed for people to dance to. Traditional themes, rhythms and dances are a very important source of inspiration to me, as they are the grounds of most of todays music. Playing the accordion made me learn about rhythms and melodies that are different from those I came across in my jazz course, and dancing to those opened up for me yet another side of what music is and/or can be: a means of joyous communication linking the aerial pleasure of listening to the physical rapture of dancing. Which leads me to my next point: not only did I come to realise, over the course of this master degree, how important it was to me to approach music from a variety of angles; it also became clear to me that I want to explore more thoroughly the ways music can intertwine with other artistic forms (mainly: dance & theatre) -and with different aspects of life.1 Hence the insertion of a short tap dancing break in my nal concert program.

3.3. Main projects

Uivati Trio: My main trio and the band I am going to play with on this nal concert. As mentioned above, the repertoire of this band mixes traditional music with original compositions and arrangements. Thtre Mat: This is a theatre company I work with. They have been putting on musical theatre shows for young audiences for the last 25 years, often working with professional musicians, indeed often including them in the theatre show itself (that is to say, giving them a character). I am currently
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playing in two of their shows: Banquise (created in 2009) which amongst other things played for a month in Montreal in April 2012, and Grimm (created in 2011). Dyna B: Dyna B is a Haitian/Belgian dancer and soul music singer I play with occasionally. This amplied band is very different from the acoustic approach I develop in my other projects, which makes it all the more interesting. Jour de fte: This is a 50-piece fanfare I have been playing with since the age of 14. Their repertoire includes jazz standards, lm soundtracks and latino-american tunes. This is an amateur band, but the inuence they had and still have- on me as a musician is prominent. Moreover, we have a jointed concert scheduled on the 12th of September at Theatre Marni, with Uivati Trio & Jour de Fte. It represents quite a challenge to make these two worlds meet in a congruous manner, but I am condent I will nd a way to put them together, through music of course, but also through the use of theatrical tools.

3.4. Sources of inspiration

There are a great number of things that have guided and inspired me over the course of the past two years. Certain things were more personal, others more directly related to music, but they all participated in my research insofar as ones personal and musical development are in my view intimately linked. Listed below are the main concerts, CDs, books, lms & discussions that inspired me as a musician during my master degree.

Courses & Encounters: Advanced Rhythm lessons with Stphane Galland Private lesson & multiple discussions with Ben Sluijs about music Ensemble with Diederik Wissels: Although this years ensemble with
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Diederik seemed somewhat doomed, it has had a great impact on me through the choice of the tunes, which all tted in the style I develop myself, and thanks to Diederiks constructive remarks throughout the year.

Concerts: Tricycle, Jazz Station (Brussels, Belgium), 2012 Featuring Tuur Florizoone on accordion, Philippe Laloy on soprano saxophone and Vincent Noiret on double bass, Tricycle has certainly been one of my most prominent inuences in the past years. Tuurs compositions, between folk, jazz and lm-music, and Philippe Laloys subtle playing are an example of the kind of things I look for in music: round sounds, melodious lines & a nice mix between written parts, relatively xed arrangements and improvisation. Georgi Kornazov Horizons Quintet, Loches en Jazz (Loches, France), August 2011 I discovered this band in the course of a Jazz Festival in a small countryside french town, and I was immediately blown, rst and foremost by the compositions, mixing jazz and eastern european inuences, which immediately appealed to me, and certainly inuenced my repertoire choices for Uivati Trio. Secondly, I was struck by how beautifully the sounds of the soprano saxophone and the trombone blended -the quintets line-up has thus been an inspiration for my MA2 FYP. Massot-Florizoone-Horbaczewski, Muziekpublique, Thtre Molire (Brussels, Belgium), Mai 2013 Like Tricycle, Massot-Florizoone-Horbaczewskis music goes in the same direction as I do. The original instrumentation as well as the music, slightly more free/opened than Tricycles, opened up new possibilities
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for me to think about. Tomassenko, Thtre Varia (Brussels, Belgium), March 2013 Olivier Thomas is a singer and an actor; he plays in trio with a guitarist and a bass clarinet player, both of them great musicians. This concert was inspiring not only on a musical level (unusual instrumentation, interesting arrangements), but also, and I would say mainly, on a staging level. Indeed, the concert was very good musically, but also excellent theatrically. This was done in a subtle way -the musicians did little more than their regular musician role, but they had been intelligently directed, and this really added to the show as a whole. Feet & Finger's sisters, Sint-Gillis Voorplein (Brussels, Belgium; org. LDH), April 2013 Marie-Sophie Talbot is a multi-instrument player and singer; in this project, she plays in duo with Jolle Ribant, tap dancer2 (who also sings and plays the trumpet). Seeing them play and dance together has denitely conrmed my desire to incorporate tap dancing and singing in my ulterior projects, alongside my soprano saxophone playing.

CDs: ASTAIRE Fred & SINATRA Frank, Duets Astaire & Sinatra Vol. 2, Digital Natives, 2011 ANDREWS Laverne, Maxine & Patty, Rhum & Coca-Cola, performed by The Andrews Sisters, Sony Music Media, 2004 I listened a great deal to Fred Astaires, Frank Sinatras and the Andrews Sisters songs in the past two years. This heritage from broadway musicals, characterised by its naivety and, sometimes, its cheesiness, is a big part of my musical background, and led me to learn tap dancing.

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The Imagined Village, Bending the Dark, ECC Records, 2012 A fantastic album from a English modern folk band; a great example of how traditional folk music can be reinterpreted and adapted in a more modern manner.

LALOY Didier, S-Tres/Version Originale, Wild Boar Music, 2004 Didier Laloy is an amazing diatonic accordion player; I discovered the belgian folk scene through this CD, and have been listening to it regularly ever since.

Turdus Philomelos, Ici Maintenant L Pouf!, Homerecords, 2009 Tangram, Soufes, Mogno Music, 2011 Klezmic Zirkus, Vitamine K, Homerecords, 2007 WALLEMME Christophe, Time Zone, Nocturne, 2004 TEXIER Henri, Mosac Man, performed by Azur Quintet (H.Texier, S.Texier, G.Ferris, B.Zulkarpasic, T.Rabeson), Label Bleu, 1998 GALLIANO Richard, Nino Rota, Universal Music Company, 2011 Jethro Tull (ANDERSON Ian), Minstrel in the Gallery, Island, 1975 Gentle Giant, Free Hand, Chrysalis, 1975 WISSELS Diederik, Song of you, Sowarex, 2004 Trio Grande & Matthew BOURNE, Un matin plein de promesses, De Werf, 2008 Caravan, If I could do it all over again, Id do it all over you, Decca, 1970 KORNAZOV Georgi, Viara, performed by Georgi Kornazov Horizons Quintet (G.Kornazov, E.Parisien, M.Codjia, M.Buronfosse & K.Jannuska), BCM Records, 2007

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FLORIZOONE Tuur, Orange for Tea, performed by Tricycle (T.Florizoone, P.Laloy & V.Noiret), Homerecords, 2004 MEHLDAU Brad, The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3 - Songs, Warner, 1998

Film: CAILLAT Grald, La Spira, Idale Audience/videomante/Arte France/ main d'or cration, 2012 This documentary presents the work of a self-conducted orchestra, La Spira Mirabilis. The way they think about music and work on it together, discussing every little thing and sharing their experience with each other and with the public, truly impressed and inspired me. For more information, see http://www.spiramirabilis.com/en/Spirit.aspx [Online, last accessed: 17th of May, 2013]

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I did a research on the possible links between art and activism as part of my Sociology degree. Jolle Ribant is also my tap dance teacher

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