Edition: Jazz Big Band Arrangement

Description: Dixieland/Swing - Medium Difficult

Publisher: Jazz Lines Publications

Alexander's Ragtime Band, written by Irving Berlin, is one of the earliest popular songs to become a jazz standard. Paul Weston's arrangement for Ella Fitzgerald's Irving Berlin Songbook album (1958) is a highly creative re-imagining of the tune, swapping back and forth between two different styles to both pay tribute to the song's roots as well as give it a stylish update. It can also serve as a good mid-set break for your band's lead brass players, who leave most of the heavy lifting to the rest of their sections.

After the introduction, the first pass through the melody consists of a Dixieland-style combo providing some raucous collective improvisation behind the vocals. Weston fully wrote out this section (and what he arranged is included in this publication), but chords are provided in the event that your ensemble wishes to improvise this (as the band did for the 1958 recording). Whenever this configuration appears, the rhythm section should play with a heavy-handed, hard swinging backbeat. After getting a brief spotlight to themselves, a different combo takes over at measure 49. This group is a more modernist configuration, featuring ensemble writing that is clearly inspired by the cool-school sound of the Dave Pell Octet. At this time, the rhythm section should shift to a more reserved, gentle approach to timekeeping. When Fitzgerald starts to wrap up the second melody, she alters the lyrics to give a nod to each of the two combos, before bringing the whole band back together for a delightfully energetic conclusion.

This publication was prepared from Paul Weston's original pencil score - this is not a transcription.

 

Full Score
2 Alto Saxophones (Alto Sax 2 Doubles Clarinet)
2 Tenor Saxophones
Baritone Saxophone
4 Trumpets
4 Trombones
Guitar
Piano
Bass
Drum Set

Vocal Key: Bb
Trumpet 1: C6
Trombones 1 and 2: Bb4