Zoot Suite for Orchestra (Berners, John Edgar)

		Movements/Sections 3 sections I. Rag Nocturne II. Humming Harmlessly in Harlem III. Headlong Boogie Composition Year 2002 Genre Categories Suites; For orchestra; Scores featuring the orchestra

Sheet Music

• Scores (1)

Scores

 I. Rag Nocturne
*#258389 - 0.23MB, 19 pp. -  0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (0) - !N/!N/!N - 82x⇩

PDF typeset by Unknown
Jberners (2012/11/12)

Publisher Info.:

John Edgar Berners

Copyright:

Performance Restricted Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 1.0 [tag/del]

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General Information

Work Title	Zoot Suite for Orchestra
Alternative Title

Composer	Berners, John Edgar
Movements/Sections	3 sections I. Rag Nocturne II. Humming Harmlessly in Harlem III. Headlong Boogie
Year/Date of Composition	2002
First Publication	2002
Average Duration	10 minutes
Piece Style	Modern
Instrumentation	Full Orchestra

Misc. Comments

This is the composer's orchestration of a piano piece by the same title, based on American piano idioms--rag, popular song, and boogie woogie.

Program note

Zoot Suite began life as a piano piece based on American piano idioms and later grew into a full orchestral suite. Although the piano is not used in the orchestra, a different piano style is the basis of each movement.

• The first movement, ‘Rag Nocturne,’ is a slow dance with just a bit of rag syncopation. Maybe because I was studying the piano music of Satie when I composed it, it came out sounding a little French.
• ‘Humming Harmlessly in Harlem’ is a passacaglia in a dreamy style with a hint of lounge piano and dance-band brass playing.
• ‘Headlong Boogie’ is a tribute to the great boogie-woogie piano players of the thirties. The left hand is the heart of boogie-woogie and this movement uses a number of the bass patterns my father, a boogie-woogie aficionado, taught me when I was little. Near the end, in the second-to last bar, is a brief quote from the great Chicago boogie player Jimmy Yancey, who ended all his recordings with the same tag, always in E-flat Major, no matter what key the piece had been in! Jimmy’s tag is heard here in the strings (in E-flat, of course) before the full orchestra plays the “real” ending a measure later.