Concert today. Titled "Parker Shorter Nelson Nimmons", referring to the composers of the music that we played, i.e. Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, Wayne Shorter, Oliver Nelson, and Phil Nimmons. The first three might be household names for people familiar with the jazz vernacular, but I wager most people have not heard of Phil Nimmons. The conductor, Ralph Bowen, has a special bond with Nimmons: Nimmons was Bowen's first mentor when Bowen was 15. (Well, that and the fact that they are both Canadian q= )

From Jazzcanadiana

Phillip Rista (Phil) Nimmons {clarinet, composer, conductor, and educator}, was born in Kamloops, British Columbia on June 3, 1923. From 1966 he led a band for the CBC jazz radio shows, toured Armed Forces bases in Canada, Europe, Middle East, Africa and India, sponsored by the CBC and the Canadian Government. Arranged and orchestrated Oscar Peterson's "Canadiana Suite" for his own group, Nimmons 'N' plus 6, with Peterson as featured soloist at Beaverbrook Playhouse, Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1970. Wrote and premiered "Suite P.E.I." for the Prince Edward centennial in 1973. Wrote "Palette A Deux" for World Saxophone Congress also in 1973. In 1974 he premiered "Atlantic Suite" on concert tour of Atlantic Provinces and orchestrated and arranged a selection of Duke Ellington songs for Oscar Peterson's performance with the Vancouver Symphony. In April of 1975 he orchestrated and arranged Peterson's thematic material for the Ontario Place film "Big North". He has been an annual participant at the University of New Brunswick's Jazz and Chamber Music Festival, a director of summer jazz courses at Niagara College, and in 1975 was appointed director of the jazz programme at the University of Toronto. He received citations from the Canadian Government in 1967, 1969, 1971 and 1972.

BMI honoured him in 1968 with an award for best original jazz composition, and in 2001 he was inducted into the International Association of Jazz Educators Hall of Fame, the first Canadian member to receive this award.

Of his pieces, we played, in order, "Think Nice Thoughts", "Threeful" (in 3/4 time), "Muse the Blues" (a, well, for the lack of better term, blues parody), "Birdburger" (a tribute to Parker), and "Dorian Way". (Some recommended recordings of Nimmons' music: The Canadian Scene [Verve 314 543 058-2] Atlantic Suite / Suite P.E.I. / Tributes [ w/ Big Band & Nonet Sackville SK2CD 5003] and Sands of Time [Sackville SK2CD 5008].)

PUJE2 opened with tunes by the other three composers, including "Cool Blues" of CP, "Salt Peanuts" of Dizzy Gillespie, "Infant Eyes" and "Witch Hunt" of Shorter, and "Blues and the Abstract Truth" of Nelson. It is interesting to note that PUJE2 is a "power-sax" band: a 2 bari, 3 tenor, 4 alto set-up with a rhythm section and no other horns.

For some reason I started having a bad headache about half and hour before call. Drinking water didn't help. For the first two tunes that we played, I was on automatic pilot, and Richa complained that she couldn't hear me over the band. (Hum, during tuning, my reed fell out, and it sounded weird when I was playing the first tune. I should've realized that something was wrong and changed to a new reed then...)

Half-way through the third tune, while trying to honour Richa's request for more presence, I blew too hard on the palm keys and the reed cracked in the middle. That is the first time that ever happened to me on an Alexander Superiour, and the first time that ever happened in the middle of a concert. For the rest of the tune I squeaked horribly. After opening the fourth tune (7 notes total), I used the 32-bar rest to change to my backup reed, which sounded infinitely better than the previous one, and also gave me more weight and presence.

Over all, the performance was decent. There were some places where individuals missed entrances, and my throbbing headache really messed up my timing for "Threeful", so I had a slightly uneven execution. PUJE2 might have done a better job than us.