Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra is a jazz album produced by Planet Arts Recordings and released in August 2014.Indiegogo, Mists: The Music of Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra funding campaign, June 3–27, 2014 The recording is centered on Charles Ives' art song arranged for 17-piece jazz orchestra by composer Jack Cooper; this is a Third stream approach to jazz made more widely known by earlier band leaders and composers such as Paul Whiteman, Gunther Schuller, George Russell and Don Sebesky. The album is archived in both the United States Library of Congress and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek as a historically significant sound recording.Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra catalogue entry in the United States Library of CongressMists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra catalogue entry in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Noted Ives scholar Gayle Magee writes,"These recordings preserve the essence of (Ives) classics...while offering a fresh, modern reinterpretation for Ives fans and jazz enthusiasts alike."Magee, Gayle. Charles Ives Reconsidered University of Illinois Press, 2008 The album was named as one of the Top 10 Jazz CDs for 2014 in the Chicago Tribune by music critic Howard Reich and also peaked at #8 in radio airplay in the Roots Music Report for top albums in Canada for October 26, 2014.Reich, Howard. Chicago Tribune, music column, Top 10 Jazz CDs of 2014, December 3, 2014, also syndicated and was published in the Baltimore Sun, the Capital Gazette, and the Virginia Gazette Reich comments about the CD, "Can the gnarly, rhythmically complex, densely scored works of Ives be transformed (sic)? ...arranger Cooper accomplishes it brilliantly, applying a jazz aesthetic to Ives classics..."
Background
Hearing Ives for the first time Jack Cooper grew up in a musical household in the greater Los Angeles area. His mother (Georgie Cooper) was a professional keyboardist, and numerous musicians visited their house to rehearse and give recitals; his Godfather (Robert Voris) was one of those.Robert Voris with the Belle Canto Choir as soloistbiography for Georgie Cooper on DiscogsMusical Tribute: Jazz Foundation, professor honor Charles Ives with CD. Don Wade, Staff writer, The Memphis Daily News, VOL. 129, NO. 157, August 13, 2014 Voris was one of the first vocal soloists (baritone) with the William Hall Master Chorale in the late 1950s and at one point recorded a LP of classical art song with his mother in October 1963, just 5 months after Cooper was born.Festival of Song LP, Robert Voris and Georgie Cooper, recorded October 26, 1963.William Hall Master Chorale, founded in 1956, Los Angeles Times, October 8th, 2002 Many works were recorded for the LP to include Charles Ives' songs. The Ives titles recorded on the master tapes were The Greatest Man, Serenity, Evening and Charlie Rutlage. This sound became normal for Cooper to hear at home. He heard Ives' songs performed for about 10 years until both his mother and Voris were too busy to perform regular recitals together any longer.
Ives music played in school During the 1980s Cooper heard and played the works of Charles Ives in music school, such as the Country Band March, The Unanswered Question, The Camp-Meeting, and his other symphonies. Cooper worked professionally as a full-time jazz musician for about 6 years before attending the University of Texas at Austin to complete a doctorate in music composition.Cooper had toured as a saxophonist, woodwind specialist and staff arranger with the United States Army Jazz Knights from 1989 to 1995 By that time he had also gained experience as a professional staff writer, working on jazz orchestral pieces. Cooper enjoyed writing for large jazz groups, composing pieces like his predecessors Fletcher Henderson, Ellington, Basie, Gil Evans, etc. At one point while living in New York City, Cooper studied with the jazz composer Manny Albam; Albam would later encourage Cooper's pursuit of the Mists/Ives jazz orchestra project.
Ives songs made into dissertation
Cooper first attended classes at the UT Austin in late 1995; one of those was with musicologist Elliott Antokoletz.Elliott Antokoletz, University of Texas at Austin In Antokoletz' book Twentieth Century Music (Prentice Hall), Chapter 7 is devoted to music in the United States and specifically Charles Ives is analyzed for 10 pages.Antokoletz, Elliott. Twentieth Century Music Prentice Hall. Inglewood Cliffs N.J. 1996. Elliott Antokoletz uses Ives' The Cage as a key departure point. The Cage ended up becoming the first of the Ives works Cooper arranged for jazz orchestra; an experiment on how to use more disparate 'Americana' material to arrange and orchestrate rather than typical 'tin pan alley' songs. Cooper's arrangements preserve Ives' work while undergoing a transformation to a jazz aesthetic, "...(the) unexpected places we hear in jazz, and wanna' hear in jazz."WKNOFM/NPR radio, A Great American Modernist Gets Jazzed by Christopher Blank, April 21st, 2014
In 1997 Cooper undertook a dissertation project to find music suitable for jazz orchestra that would push the boundaries of how to orchestrate in that idiom.Cooper, Jack T. Three Sketches for Jazz Orchestra Inspired by Charles Ives Songs. University of Texas at Austin, 1999. Thesis (D.M.A.) This was a Third Stream approach of melding a prominent American classical composer with the idiom of full 17 piece jazz orchestra. Charles Ives music was decided upon due to the composer's distinctly American style and approach to melodically and harmonically challenging material. The fundamental idea was to use Ives’ “vocal lieder” written for piano and voice much the way arrangers have used songs of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, or Duke Ellington as the inspiration for large jazz orchestra source material (his most basic ideas). Over 160 songs of Ives songs were considered and a master list was derived from numerous volumes of song collections, the Complete Songs of Charles Ives (in four volumes) were used as the primary audio reference.“Complete Songs of Charles Ives” Albany Records, in four volumes The lengthy process of making master lists and doing study of many Ives’ songs was vital to eventually completing the Mists album. The first three works used in that dissertation were The Cage, The Last Reader and Tom Sails Away; the work is listed as a noted text in both "Charles Ives: A Guide to Research" and "A Charles Ives omnibus".Alumni Biographical page (jazz) , The University of Texas, Butler School of MusicMagee, Gayle. Charles Ives: A Guide to Research. Psychology Press. pp 85.Burk, James Mack. A Charles Ives omnibus. Pendragon Press, 2008. pp 840. Cooper's orchestrations of The Cage and Tom Sails Away were also recorded on CDs by university jazz ensembles. These would later become studio demo recordings for record labels. Both the Mists recording and treatise are housed in the University of Texas Libraries for artists and researchers.University of Texas Libraries entry linking both CD and treatise
In mid-January 1998 a visit was made by Cooper to the Gilmore Music Library at Yale University in New Haven, CT in order to study the archives of Charles Ives’ music; the original manuscripts with Ives hand written notes and corrections.Yale University, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Charles Ives Archival Collection At that time Cooper also met with noted Ives scholar James Sinclair. A great deal of important information and analysis was obtained that would help complete both the dissertation and writing of the rest of the five works for the Mists album.
Charles Ives jazz orchestra recording
In 2000 the idea came about to do an entire CD of Charles Ives works for jazz orchestra to be completed with the Summit Jazz Orchestra in Munich, Germany.Summit Jazz Orchestra at All Music Guide Due to lack of funding the project fell through but the whole album of eight of Ives songs arranged for a jazz orchestra had been completed by Cooper. Although there were setbacks, a meeting with Bob Brookmeyer during this time was very encouraging with the legendary composer giving his approval of Cooper's scores.Brookmeyer visited the University of Memphis March 1–2, 2002, as a guest artist and had a long conversation with Cooper about the Mists/Ives scores. Executive producer Thomas Bellino with Planet Arts Recordings become very interested in the recording project and approached Cooper for the permission to produce the CD late in 2002. An initial grant from the Aaron Copland Fund For Recorded Music was obtained for $10,000 but numerous difficulties with copyrights and production costs had to be worked out which prolonged the recording timeline.Aaron Copland Fund Awards $500,000 in Recording Grants by Amanda MacBlane, May 29, 2003. $10,000 grant awarded to Planet Arts Recordings to record "Mists: The Music of Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra" in 2003 Finally in November 2013, Jack Cooper met with longtime friend and musical collaborator Luis Bonilla; the project moved ahead with Bonilla as producer, contractor and musician.
For the recording Bonilla drew players from three high profile jazz orchestras in New York City: Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and the Mingus Dynasty Big Band. Bonilla was careful to contract musicians that both had high level skills as ensemble players as well as being some of the most adept and known jazz soloists in New York. The demanding level of the music and solo spaces proved required this; there was limited time to rehearse and record the entire CD during April 2–6 of 2014. The CD was recorded by a full jazz orchestra (live, no overdubs) on April 4, 2014, at Systems Two Recording in Brooklyn, New York, with extra recording of two solos by trumpeter Terell Stafford completed on April 6 at Lighthouse Recording on Staten Island. Grammy award winning sound engineers Mike Marciano and Ed Reed were used for the recording, editing, mixing and mastering.
The remainder of the budget needed ($18,750) was obtained through the crowd funding site Indiegogo during a highly successful campaign during 25 days in June 2014.Crowd-funding campaign for local jazz CD hits all right notes, Rob Robertson, Staff writer - Memphis Business Journal, July 9, 2014, 2:49pm CDTMusicians turn to crowdfunding for projects, Tennessee Jazz and Blues Society (Nashville), June 16th, 2014 As part of that fundraising initiative a category of pledges was developed to lend an important educational aspect to production and support of the project. A donor gave $3000 (part of the Indiegogo) in order to have Cooper visit the University of Northern Iowa campus on April 8–10, 2015, and work with the jazz ensemble in the School of Music. Five of the Mists/Ives jazz orchestra works were performed as well as a new work that was commissioned from Cooper for the group.April 2015 edition of NPR/IPR's Iowa Arts Showcase, Performance by UNI Jazz Band One and Jack Cooper on April 10th, 2015, interview with UNI professor Chris Merz
Album cover and design
Special note is to be taken in consideration of the album design due to its significance to Charles Ives and his catalogue of works. While in the process of producing the Mists album artwork and design during the summer of 2014, Executive producer Thomas Bellino and his wife Terry Lamacchia (professional photographer) ventured north to the Housatonic River near Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Early in the morning several cover photographs were taken for the CD package allowing for a 'Mist' to be available early at sunrise over the Housatonic River. The cover is entitled "The Housatanic at Stockbridge" taken in the mid-summer of 2014, directly related to the Charles Ives' work and the third movement of Three Places in New England.