Here is a list of new items available for purchase at the IHS Online Music Sales page. These works were all written by John Graas, Jr. and edited by Jeff Snedeker.
Block Sounds
Block Sounds was recorded in Los Angeles on August 15, 1957, and released on Graas's album Coup de Graas. In the album’s original liner notes, jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote:
Written in a modern jazz vein but with traditional roots, it is based on a 32-bar pattern with solos by Pepper, Collette, Cooper, Moer, and Clark. It goes out lightly without any climactic pretension.
It is scored for horn, alto sax, tenor sax, trombone, piano, bass, and drums (with alternate parts for trumpet, alto sax, horn, baritone sax, and tuba).
Blue Haze
Blue Haze was recorded in Los Angeles in June of 1953 and released on Graas’s album French Horn Jazz in 1957. It is scored for horn, tenor sax, piano, bass, and drums.
Mood
Mood was first recorded in July 1956 by the Westlake College Quintet and released on Complete College Goes to Jazz. In the liner notes for the Quintet recording, John Tynan of Down Beat magazine wrote:
Redolent of a restless Caribbean night. From the almost mournful opening theme in minor to the brief solo spots assigned [to] Firmature, McDonald, and Fritz, the feeling of tropic unease is sustained throughout. There is atonal voicing in the dissonant intervals between the horns [i.e., winds] in the first 16 bars, with a rhumba beat lurking in the background. A straight jazz 4/4 beat takes over on the bridge with the horns modulating into intervals of thirds. Firmature’s contrasting tenor work, from pretty to nearly shouting, is notable.
It is scored for horn, tenor sax, piano, bass, and drums (with alternate parts for horn, alto sax, tenor sax, and trombone).
Rogeresque (1955 version)
Rogeresque was composed as a tribute to Grass’s friend and mentor Milton “Shorty” Rogers. Rogeresque was recorded two different times, first in 1955 for seven parts and again in 1957 in a quintet version. Tom Mack, writer, critic, and publicity staff member at Decca Records, describes the piece:
One of the two major influences (the other is, of course, Gerry Mulligan) on Graas’s approach to jazz composition is his friend Shorty Rogers, whom John salutes herewith. In addition to the fine horn performance, this selection highlights the beauty and inventiveness of Mariano’s alto and Candoli’s trumpet.
This version is scored for alto sax, trumpet, horn, guitar, piano, bass, and drums.
Rogeresque (1957 version)
Of this later arrangement, jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote:
Rogeresque is played by the small group…opening with eight bars of jumping piano leading into the theme, it proceeds to some pleasantly casual jazz on the traditional I Got Rhythm changes by Pepper’s tenor (two choruses), then offers 16 measures to Moer and returns to a brief ensemble to seal it off.
This version is scored for horn, tenor sax, piano, bass and drums.
Swing Nicely
Swing Nicely was recorded in Los Angeles on August 15, 1957 and released on the album Coup de Graas. It is scored for flute, oboe, alto sax, horn, trombone (alternate part for tuba), piano, bass, and drums.
