World Premiere: Angels with Dirty Faces

Last night was the world premiere of Angels with Dirty Faces, the piece dedicated to Nicole Alaniz. I blogged what I read before the piece was performed... notice the sunflowers on their music stands -- sunflowers were Nicole's favorite.

The band did a really great job -- especially considering the extensive rewrites I dropped on them the day before. The piece seemed to be very well received, and it was an honor to be able to create something for them to all come together for, in memory of their student, their friend, their daughter, their sister.

(Director Gil Wukitsch, me, and director Jim Kull)

I want to thank the musicians of St. Charles East High School for bringing such focus, dedication, and sensitivity to this performance, as well as offering me the opportunity to write this piece for them.

Introduction to Angels with Dirty Faces

"I’d like to say a few words about the piece you’re about to hear, and about the process of creating it.

A year ago, the musicians at St. Charles East asked me to write a piece for them -- in tribute, not in mourning – for Nicole Alaniz. I was flattered that they chose me, and I was honored to be asked to write about something of such significance to them.

In the past I have found that when I write music of a personal nature, it becomes a reflection of the process I undertake. So if I was going to write a piece about Nicole, I had to get to know her as well as I could.

I spoke to Jim Kull and Gil Wukitsch about her, and learned about a student who was bright, talented and charismatic, whose spirit and energy made quite an impression on both of them.

I emailed with friends of Nicole’s, and learned about a beautiful soul who was fun and outrageous and SASSY – that word came up again and again and again, SASSY. And they told me how much they missed her, and that there would never be another Nicole Alaniz.

I talked to Lynne Green, her flute teacher, and I went to a rehearsal of her flute ensemble so I could get to know Nicole there, in that context. And I learned about a relationship between a musician and a mentor that was inspired and inspiring -- that allowed them both to grow and share in the development.

I spoke to Nicole’s father on the phone, and in the process of learning more about his daughter, and I learned a lot about the profound depth of a father’s love and acceptance.

I read her writing, and I could relate to all love and anger and passion and disgust and awe and disillusionment that she was discovering in this wonderous and horrifying world that we all have to share.

Now all I had to do was write a piece of music about all of that.

To this day, I still don’t believe that’s possible.

And it's not because it was too much to work with -- it was actually too little.

All I was doing was peeking at snapshots through keyholes to try to see who Nicole was, and what I was really learning was that there are too many dimensions to a human being to really know them second-hand – you have to experience them as part of your life. And so I think now, that is why life, and LIVING YOUR LIFE, is so valuable, so precious.

You’ve gotta be there to experience it. All the dimensions.

For me, this writing process was not just about Nicole, because in spite of all my efforts, I still don’t know her, and it is with profound regret that I never will.

Writing this piece became about creating something for all of you, the people that knew her, and giving you an opportunity to think of her, remember her and all her infinite dimensions – the infinite dimensions of her life, in your life.

This piece is not a grand or epic statement, and it’s not an emotional trainwreck – while those pieces come overflowing with prefabricated emotion, they don’t allow the listener many dimensions to experience.

This piece was also not only intended for the audience, it was written as an experience for the musicians playing it.

This piece is about 5 minutes long, and, it is the only piece I’ve been focused on for the past 12 months. That won’t guarantee that it is good or that you will like it, but it means that it did not come into being without great thought and consideration.

It is humbling to only be able to share this –

I wish you all your own moment to think of Nicole, and in that moment, to hopefully feel closer to her.

If you can have that, I am grateful to have been a small part of creating that moment for you."

Angles on Angels

After about 16 hours worth of rewrites over the past weekend, I sent Jim Kull the revised score and parts, and he was gracious enough to put them up on the stand today. Evidently, the ensemble took to the changes well, so hopefully, NOW the piece is finished... I'm riding out to the dress rehearsal tomorrow morning, and then the premiere tomorrow night, so more news soon...

There was an article in the Daily Herald today about the piece... CLICK HERE to check it out...

very dirty faces

So as I mentioned before, I finished Angels With Dirty Faces last weekend -- by FINISH, that means I decided it was finished -- I had been agonizing over the flute intro, and I thought I'd finally come to the simplest, most elegant soluton. I decided that I wasn't going to mess with it anymore, that it was time to let it be.

I heard a recording of a rehearsal yesterday. It was the first time I'd heard it, aside from imagining it in my mind's ear.

I've decided it's not finished.

Mainly it's orchestration problems, but there are a few small structural problems too.

I'm hoping the band will be willing to take these changes before the premiere on TUESDAY.

last Friday, part 2

So after the recording session, Milt and I high-tailed it out to Shaumberg to see Steve Vai -- this wasn't an ordinary concert (although I'd never call a Vai concert "ordinary") -- this was a meet and greet, up-close-and-personal experience at his brother's restaurant. And having been inspired by Vai's work for over half my life, this was set up to be close to a religious experience for me.

We got there just in time to grab seats -- our table was taken, but I spotted even better seats and cajoled the hostess to let us take them. To give you an idea how good these seats were, check out this picture Milt took:


And he was sitting behind me! We were less than 10 feet from the stage!

They say you should never meet your idol. Let me just say, that's a bunch of bull.


There's really no use to talk about this evening, because words just won't do it justice... but it was amazing, inspiring, and I doubt I will ever forget the experience.

last Friday, part 1

Hey sorry, crazy week -- we're in the home stretch on Stranglehold and there is precious little time to do anything else... although I did FINALLY finish Angels with Dirty Faces this weekend! But more on that later...

Here are a few pictures from the jazz recording session I had at Hinge studios last Friday. The day started at 6 AM, scrambling to finish up the charts for the session. They weren't that involved, but they still needed to be clear and precise so that we could minimize the discussion and maximize the recording time...

By 1:30 PM, Vince Pontarelli and I were downtown and by 2:30, we had a full band and were ready to go.

I didn't have much time to take pictures, but here's one of the drummer, Tom Hipskind, getting warmed up in the large live room:


and bassist Larry Kohut -- through the glass of the iso booth:


Meanwhile, our engineer, James, ran the board (those are my scores and cell phone on the right side of the board):


While Milt Allen and Vince hung out in the back on the comfy couch:


Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the piano player, Ron Perrillo, but he was AMAZING. So was the clarinet/tenor sax player, Jim Gailloreto. Here's a picture I took from where I was sitting into his iso booth:


During the session, there was a 2 camera shoot going on, for the "making of Stranglehold" extra movie... here's the director, Chris, as we do the classic you-take-a-picture-of-me-taking-a-picture-of-you... it was his idea...


The session went really well, and it's going to be great in the game. As soon as it we were finished, it was time to rush off to see STEVE VAI...

big day

Big day today... recording session in the afternoon at Hinge studios, and then Steve Vai at Entourage tonight... I'll tell you more about it next week... in the meantime, I've got to finish up my charts for the session!

more Sticks & Stones

I slipped a few advance copies of Sticks & Stones, my piece for drumset and concert band, to a few directors who were particularly enthusiastic to program the piece... word is that Shilo Stroman, the drummer extraordinaire for whom the piece was written, is performing it again in Wheatridge, Colorado next week, so that'll be cool...

...Steve Bryant told me he was in upstate New York for a performance of his monstrous piece, A Million Suns at Midnight, and heard an INTENSE performance of Sticks & Stones on the same concert...

... and word on the street is that Nazareth Academy performed Sticks & Stones last night as well. My source (who will remain anonymous) informed me that once again, my music sent people scurrying for the exits, just like my last performance at Nazareth... man, those folks must be ready to hurl when they see my name on the program!

Spiderman 3

It's difficult to be terse when expressing my strong feelings for this movie, but let me give it a try:

If I have to witness yet ANOTHER lingering closeup of Tobey Maguire's dopey mug ever again, it will be far, far, far too soon.

open apology

This is an open apology to everyone who has emailed, messaged, posted, called, written a postcard, or sent me repeated smoke signals and gotten no response.

I'm sorry.

There is way too much for me to be able to keep up with these days, but I'm working on it. Please be patient, I'm getting to you as soon as I can...

one sweet ride

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing my newly-acquired mode of transportation: a 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 LTD.

It's not that loud, but it's got this rich, throaty, baritone growl that makes it sound BIG...

It's sweeeeeeeeeet...

all that jazz

Today I finished booking some of the hottest jazz musicians in Chicago for a recording session next Friday... Jim Gailloreto on tenor sax and clarinet, Ron Perrillo on piano, Larry Kohut on bass, and Tom Hipskind on drums... Craig Bauer is the engineer at Hinge recording studios... can't wait to tell you more about it... just as soon as I finish writing the tunes!

the hat

This just in: a photo of me, doing what composers do worst -- talking to an audience about their own music.


My thanks to Dwayne and the Calgary Stampede for the most excellent white cowboy hat!

Sticks & Stones & Stampede

So here we are in Calgary -- it's a really beautiful city. I got a chance to see a little of the city in the morning before the recording session. Very clean, and quite modern. Check out these sculptures. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they are... but they look cool!

While Dwayne and I drove around, I had a chance to check out the soundtrack to the new Cirque du Soleil show, LOVE. It's quite interesting -- mashups of Beatles tunes. The best one I heard was "Within You, Without You" combined with "Tomorrow Never Knows"...

Here's an artsy-fartsy shot -- those are posters for the concert that night. This is the only proof I have that I was there, because it's the only picture I took of myself...

... and here is Dwayne staring with some degree of disdain at the parking ticket machine that just ate his $30. He is calling the company that owns the machine, who told him not to worry, even though he didn't have a ticket or any proof that he'd paid for the parking, they wouldn't tow him or anything. Very trusting souls, those Canadians...

On to the recording/performance venue -- The Grand theatre. It's a fully renovated theatre that had fallen into quite some disrepair over the years, but it is coooooool now... they're still working on the front facade, so there was a sign to remind everyone that they ARE open.

Here's the front hallway -- an uberhip mixture of post-apocalyptic art-deco with an ultra-modern industrial flash -- the perfect place to stage Paradise Lost when it comes to Calgary. That chandelier is made out of broken bottles. Wicked-dangerously cool.

Here's the restaurant and lounge outside of the hall. We had drinks and I had a vegetable panini after the show here, and it was excellent (sorry folks, no pics of the sandwich).

Getting ready for the session... the musicians begin to assemble on one side of the stage...

... and on the other side...

Meanwhile our engineer, Leif Gilbertson, checks on the gear to make sure everything is good to go. Leif was totally on-the-ball but laidback and mellow -- the perfect vibe for a recording session. He was also very openminded about my NUMEROUS requests and suggestions, which I really appreciated...

... and Tyler Hornby, our drum set soloist, getting warmed up. Besides being an extraordinarily talented drummer and musician, he was also great to work with during the session. His cadenzas were miniature compositions in and of themselves, and I wish I could put every one of the takes on the album -- yes, they were all that good.

Here's a shot from the top of the audience's seating of the recording setup. Check out that HUGE brick wall behind them -- it's like a natural shell, projecting everything out. It also looked hella cool. You may also notice that the drumset is on the floor in front of the band, facing the ensemble -- BEHIND the microphones. Why would do that?! Because that center pair of mics are directional, and by putting the drums on the other side, the magnetic pattern of the microphone will reject the drumset, and actually make the drums sound farther away. Then we can put close mics on the drums (two overheads, a kick mic, and a snare mic which will probably never get used) to give us presence, and the ensemble mics will give us a nice sense of the "room" for the drums, AND it keeps the director and the ensemble closer to the drumset, minimizing the delay of sound travelling through air, and therefore giving us a tighter performance. Just a little advanced acoustic recording technique tip for ya' there...

Here's a close-up from behind Tyler's drums, for the tweaky drummers out there. What you can't see is his main snare drum, but what you can see on the left is the extra mini snare he also plays -- very cool contrasting snare sounds. Also notice the mini-gong on the right (which he used subtly to great effect), and the pages and pages of drum chart layed out end to end to avoid page turns...

TAKE FIVE. While the musicians were taking a break, I snapped this attractive but useless photo of their instruments, lined up like a row of Harley Davidsons outside of a biker bar. What you can't really tell in this picture is that all the player's instruments are forward-firing for maximum power. Tubas? Mounted on their shoulder like a giant bazooka. Euphoniums? French Horns -- bells forward, low notes ablaze. I wanted a really aggressive sound for this piece, and believe me, I GOT IT.

The session went as smooth as glass, and Tyler and the band played great. I think we've got a great recording of the piece.

I didn't take many pictures of the concert, so if anyone has any of the Sticks & Stones performance, send them to jimbonney@aol.com. I don't even have a picture of the cool cowboy hat they gave me! (could take one here in Chicago, but I don't think it'd be the same...)

Here's the drumline, about to perform. Through a rather bizarre upbringing, I'm pretty sure I've never heard a drumline perform live before that evening.

Now that I have, I can say without reservation: it's probably the greatest acoustic ensemble EVER.

Here's a closeup of Andrew Bell playing drumset -- this guy looked like he was having more fun than the entire band put together, and he grooved hard too. It was awesome to watch.

This was a world premiere performance of an arrangement for brass choir, based on a painting by a well-known painter of Western scenes. To bring things full-circle, they had an artist (Alexandra, who also happened to be an excellent bass clarinetist) paint a new work while the piece was being performed. Art imitated life imitates art. Or something like that...

Sticks & Stones was the final piece of the evening, and it was INTENSE. The band played super-tight, and Tyler was bangin'. He came offstage totally stoked and I heard him say the coolest, most candid thing:

"Wow -- I wish I could do that every night!"

This is coming from a guy who headed out on Monday for a European tour with a successful jazz ensemble -- he's not sitting on the couch waiting for wedding gigs. I was really excited that I could be a part of creating something that could get these players that pumped up, and honored that he had such an enjoyable time playing my piece.

A successful performance, and after a long day, the only thing left was to load up the equipment and head home. I had to take a picture of the Calgary Stampede TRUCK -- yes folks, this band has their own TRUCK, complete with custom art that would rival the cover of any Harlequin romance novel. Priceless stuff.


I want to give a huge thanks to the Calgary Stampede and Tyler Hornby for playing their asses off, and to Leif Gilbertson for getting us a great recording. And last but far from least, a giant thank you to director Dwayne Engh, for making this whole project come off without a hitch, for being an extremely considerate host, and for conducting this ensemble through a successful recording session and a killer performance. THANK YOU CALGARY!!!!!