THAD JONES ANTHOLOGY: 82 ORIGINAL SMALL-GROUP COMPOSITIONS

Thad Jones - cornetist, bandleader, and composer - is one of the most influential arrangers in jazz history. His big band arrangements are published and known worldwide; it is safe to say that every professional and school jazz band library contains at least one, if not a dozen, Thad Jones arrangements. In contrast, Thad's many small-group compositions contained in this book are far less widely known. These miniature gems are every bit as ingenious and musically challenging as his large-group works. They are always musical and unusual, featuring unexpected harmonies, angular melodies, melodic counterpoint between the horns, and rhythmic counterpoint between the melody and rhythm section. Every Thad Jones composition is its own unique adventure. Beyond that, a number of these small-group tunes are the musical parents' of future Thad Jones big band classics. Many of these small-group compositions were featured on Thad's solo albums (detailed in the Discography section), again far less known than the recordings by the big band he co-led with Mel Lewis. The earliest of these tunes were recorded on his first album as a small group leader under the guidance of Charles Mingus on Mingus's Debut Records label in 1954, then for decades afterward on various solo recording projects that continued after he moved to Denmark in 1978. Thad Jones's original compositions were also featured on albums where he appeared as a sideman or co-leader, with such artists as his brothers, Hank and Elvin Jones, as well as his fellow Detroit musicians, several former Count Basie bandmates, and others: Frank Wess, Billy Mitchell and Al Grey, Stanley Turrentine, Blue Mitchell, Ben Webster, Louie Bellson, Harry James, and many more. After his death in 1986, a number of artists recorded complete CDs of Thad's small-group music, including Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, and Scott Robinson, and a two-album series was recorded in 2004 by an all-star group that included Frank Wess, Benny Golson, Jimmy Owens, Roland Hanna, Hank Jones, Richard Davis, and Kenny Washington. Notes: This book is an effort to bring definitive versions of these small-group Thad Jones compositions the wider attention and recognition that they deserve. They are transcribed as precisely as possible from the original recorded versions. These are not new arrangements; they are Thad's original versions, note for note. This book also includes a discography, listing source recordings for all compositions in this volume, as well as a Thad Jones biography, and information about the Thad Jones Archive at William Paterson University that is the basis of this project. The transcriptions provided here contain the details needed to create a full performance of each tune, as close to the original recorded performance as possible.