DJ Hairy Larry Presents Jazz Recital Band Playing Elphonium



DJ Hairy Larry Presents Jazz Recital Band Playing Elphonium
From the Archives Of Something Blue 2024-01-28

Thanks Marty, today I’m going to read a fantasy story that I wrote. With a musical background that I wrote.

One of the best things about being a music composition student is getting other music students to help with composition recitals. When you write a piece with six parts, many of them on expensive instruments, it’s not easy to arrange to have the piece read. Unless you’re in a music department filled with excellent musicians who love to play and help each other out on recitals as a matter of course.

On “Elphonium” you will hear Caitlyn Lyerly – flute, Al Clevenger – vibes, Josh Huffstutler – marimbas, Gabe Waters – bass, Chris Isom – drums, and Hairy Larry reading spoken word. These students are all from Northeast Arkansas or Southeast Missouri and they were all in the ASU jazz program. So here’s a big shout out to these students and all the other students who helped with my recitals over the years. And years and years. Yes, I was in the music department for almost 20 years.

Now about that story.

I originally published “Elphonium” on my website, SFF Short Stories and then as a minizine. I was inspired by a piece of art by indrikoff at Deviant Art. I will post links to the story, the minizine and the art at the Something Blue website, sbblues.com.

The story is about a king who went riding with his jester and his groom into a magic forest where they were ensorcelled by music played by elves on the Elphonium.

After I wrote the music for Elphonium I wanted to be sure that the spoken word part was short enough to fit in the space provided for it in the score. So Vivian and I went over every sentence deleting every unecessary word and random thought that wasn’t required by the story. They say that 90% of writing is rewriting. Most rewriting is taking out the stuff you don’t really need.

On the day of the recital I had prepared a slideshow of public domain artwork by Arthur Rackham, a famous fantasy artist who worked in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

So the artwork is public domain except for Elphonium which was used with permission. The story and the music were written by me and I have licensed them Creative Commons Attribution so others can use and build on this work just like I used the art of Arthur Rachham. And thanks to Indrikoff for giving me permission to use his fantastic drawing of a magic horn.

The entire recital was released as an album.

So now, recorded at the ASU Bandroom on November 30, 2018, here’s my piece, the title track of my album “Elphonium”

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Jazz Recital Band Playing Elphonium
From the Archives Of Something Blue 2024-01-28
archive.org/details/something-blue-star

Hairy Larry Live at ASU Bandroom on 2018-11-30
archive.org/details/hl2018-11-30

Something Blue Archives – List Of Concerts
archive.org/details/somethingbluearchives

Elphonium on SFF Short Stories
sffshortstories.com/?x=entry:entry170714-062937

Elphonium Minizine
www.minizines.cc/flat/?entry=entry190603-032325

Elphonium Artwork
Elphonium

HairyLarryLand
hairylarryland.com/

music

And that was “Elphonium”, a piece I wrote played by ASU students in the band room on November 30, 2018. Don’t miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00, to hear more great jazz by Bob Reynolds, Christian Peterman, The Sextet, and Steve Lawson all licensed Creative Commons.

DJ Hairy Larry With Bob Reynolds Playing Where Did You Come From
Something Blue – Star – 29 second spot

This is Hairy Larry inviting you to enjoy Something Blue every Saturday night at ten. This week we’re featuring Bob Reynolds, Christian Peterman, The Sextet, and Steve Lawson. For more about the show visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

Don’t miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00 PM CST, at kasu.org.

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