"Natalie Cressman’s solo on 'That Kind"”

Natalie Cressman’s solo on “That Kind”

transcription by Kirsten Lies-Warfield

analysis by Antonio J. García

ITAJ Associate Jazz Editor

Natalie Cressman’s composition “That Kind” is an even-eighth, half-time-feel funky tune from her self-released album UNFOLDING. Her trombone solo provides a breadth of expression that spans one-chord and complex-progression harmony with lyrical ease, even as meters change. Kirsten Lies-Warfield’s transcription (provided here with permission of both Cressman and Lies-Warfield) shows that Cressman’s background in jazz, jam, and commercial bands, anchored by vocal experience, makes for a solo that sounds easy on the ear yet is challenging to construct.

The Tune, The Solo

The melody of the tune is backed by a series of rapidly shifting harmonies, presented in an environment of evolving metric modulations and cross-rhythms that appeal to the listener but are advanced in concept. Thus the solo sections (first sax, then trombone) begin with a contrasting release: a one-chord, Em(Maj7) open section in which the soloist and partners can take a breath and decide how to comment on what has just transpired. On cue, they shift the solo section to the complex harmonies and time-shifting that had characterized the peaks of the tune, thereafter giving way to either the next soloist or the ensemble. Thus the double-bars assigned to the transcription’s Em(Maj7) section are arbitrary afterthoughts prompted by listening to the recorded musical partnership.

Throughout the solos, not a V-I or cycle of fifths is to be found: chordal movements are by half-step, whole step, often in descending minor thirds, frequently morphing between minor and major structures (no dominant chords), and made all the more excitable by their positioning within syncopated rhythms and metric modulations—a great contrast to the one-chord section that opens the solos.

Rhythmic Dance

It’s easy to connect Cressman’s lyricism with her alter ego as vocalist. Yet what’s most striking to me is her rhythmic flow, which I venture to associate more as stemming from her early love and pursuit of dance (as well as her subsequent music training and career). The push and pull of her lines, both as composer and soloist, prompt very visual moves to at least this listener and challenge us all to explore our own potential for rhythmic fluidity. In this solo she offers a banquet of duple, triple, and sixteenth-based phrases, double-time syncopations, superimpositions of three over four and vice-versa, and—within the 6/8 sections—ability to divide the measures differently as she wishes. The second half of this solo would look at home on the music stand of a classical trombonist performing a contemporary composition for the concert hall, while her recurring rhythmic themes invite the listener into her lines. And, having playfully positioned such independent rhythms through so much of her solo, she partners rhythmically in the last eight bars with the background horns and then bass line.

Dynamics, Timbre, Range, & Tonality

Natalie is unafraid to explore the softest volumes, then rise and fall quickly or gradually, heightening the sense of spontaneous conversation infused in this solo. She is no one-color funk soloist dynamically or in timbre, choosing to glissando at choice moments that contrast with the clean edges of her more defined phrases.

Speaking of clean, Cressman demonstrates mastery of the harmonies underneath. As she traverses the two and a half-octave range of her solo, nearly every pitch is easily recognizable as within the canon of bop or bluesy vocabulary, yet issued in a way that is uniquely hers. A hallmark of her trombone-voice is easy control of the lower-range, used far less by many soloists.

Angles & Lines

Cressman opens her solo with arpeggios that outline an Em9(Maj7) chord. By m. 7 she adds the upper extensions (13th, 11th), later incorporating a bluesy flat-five. M. 14 retains the emphasis on chord tones plus occasional half-step neighbors. Bar 17 marks her first strong departure: the D# diminished sound serves as vii-tension superimposed over the underlying i-chord (Em); and twice in that bar she employs Ab/G# as a neighbor or extension, defying any expected limitations of an Em chord. M. 19 returns to Em outlines; mm. 22-25 emphasize the 9th (F#), followed by lines in E minor with some occasional half-steps.

With the arrival of new harmony in m. 38, Natalie stays largely within the chord structures on to the end (excepting m. 44, where a sequence of rhythm and direction sell her intention). Coupled with her rock-solid rhythmic dance over the shifting time signatures, this section of her solo exudes confidence, carrying into the final 4/4 section at m. 61, where she mimics the rhythms of the background horns’ lines she’d created as the composer.

Pace

Pacing one’s solo well is one benchmark of musical maturity. Soloists on funky tunes, particularly charts that linger on one chord for a while, often face a challenge different than soloists over bebop changes (which tend to force a certain momentum). Natalie’s pacing is born of the kind of experience that makes the result seem effortless. Starting with two- to four-bar phrases that feel relaxed while locking in the time feel, she migrates by m. 14 to more double-time intensity and within phrases as long as six bars.

Sustaining that level of activity prompts a balanced, melodic step back at m. 38, when the harmony intensifies more into the foreground. There she begins a phrase on beat one for only the second time in her solo—something she returns to seven more times during the remainder of her statement (and heralded at m. 57). When the 6/8 meter arrives at m. 45, she divides it 3+3, 4+4 (m. 46), all upbeats (m. 58), and 3+1.5+1.5 (m. 60), all lending a sense of urgency to her lines as she aims towards the end of her solo. And having already played the highest note of her solo in m. 19, she raises energy in this latter section by repeatedly employing octave and a half leaps before hitting a near-highest note at m. 57. Cressman packs her 6/8 thoughts confidently right into the last sixteenth-note low A# of m. 60 that then leaps nearly two octaves to meet the background horns in 4/4 at m. 61.

Find this and the other tracks of her album UNFOLDING on Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, Apple Music, Amazon, and other platforms; and of course learn more about her within Kirsten Lies-Warfield’s interview of Cressman here in the ITAJ, where you can find a selected discography of other recorded work.

Trombonist Kirsten Lies-Warfield did her undergraduate work at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. She then earned a Master of Music degree from Indiana University, where she studied with M. Dee Stewart. In 1999 she became the first woman trombonist ever hired by the U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own." In 2009, she took the helm of the American Trombone Workshop's National Solo Competition and doubled its size over the next two years. Now retired from the Army Band, she keeps busy freelancing in the Washington, D.C. area. She is currently second trombone with the Arlington Philharmonic and a regular member of the contemporary music group Great Noise Ensemble and the ethno funk band Black Masala. As an educator, she teaches low brass students at Episcopal High School and through Full Blown Trombone, LLC. Ms. Warfield also is an active composer-performer, writing and performing works for local and national audiences.

Antonio J. García is a Professor Emeritus and former Director of Jazz Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he directed the Jazz Orchestra I; instructed Applied Jazz Trombone, Small Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Pedagogy, Music Industry, and various jazz courses; founded a B.A. Music Business Emphasis (for which he initially served as Coordinator); and directed the Greater Richmond High School Jazz Band. An alumnus of the Eastman School of Music and of Loyola University of the South, he has received commissions for jazz, symphonic, chamber, film, and solo works—instrumental and vocal—including grants from Meet The Composer, The Commission Project, The Thelonious Monk Institute, and regional arts councils. His music has aired internationally and has been performed by such artists as Sheila Jordan, Arturo Sandoval, Jim Pugh, Denis DiBlasio, James Moody, and Nick Brignola. Composition/arrangement honors include IAJE (jazz band), ASCAP (orchestral), and Billboard Magazine (pop songwriting). His works have been published by Kjos Music, Hal Leonard, Kendor Music, Doug Beach Music, ejazzlines, Walrus, UNC Jazz Press, Three-Two Music Publications, Potenza Music, and his own garciamusic.com, with five recorded on CDs by Rob Parton’s JazzTech Big Band (Sea Breeze and ROPA JAZZ). His scores for independent films have screened across the U.S. and in Italy, Macedonia, Uganda, Australia, Colombia, India, Germany, Brazil, Hong Kong, Mexico, Israel, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. He has fundraised $5.5 million in external gift pledges for the VCU Jazz Program, with hundreds of thousands of dollars already in hand.

A Bach/Selmer trombone clinician, Mr. García serves as the jazz clinician for The Conn-Selmer Institute. He has freelanced as trombonist, bass trombonist, or pianist with over 70 nationally renowned artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, George Shearing, Mel Tormé, Doc Severinsen, Louie Bellson, Dave Brubeck, and Phil Collins—and has performed at the Montreux, Nice, North Sea, Pori (Finland), New Orleans, and Chicago Jazz Festivals. He has produced recordings or broadcasts of such artists as Wynton Marsalis, Jim Pugh, Dave Taylor, Susannah McCorkle, Sir Roland Hanna, and the JazzTech Big Band and is the bass trombonist on Phil Collins’ CD “A Hot Night in Paris” (Atlantic) and DVD “Phil Collins: Finally...The First Farewell Tour” (Warner Music). An avid scat-singer, he has performed vocally with jazz bands, jazz choirs, and computer-generated sounds. He is also a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS). A New Orleans native, he also performed there with such local artists as Pete Fountain, Ronnie Kole, Irma Thomas, and Al Hirt.

Mr. García is a Research Faculty member at The University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa) and the Associate Jazz Editor of the International Trombone Association Journal. He has served as a Network Expert (for Improvisation Materials), President’s Advisory Council member, and Editorial Advisory Board member for the Jazz Education Network . His newest book, Jazz Improvisation: Practical Approaches to Grading (Meredith Music), explores avenues for creating structures that correspond to course objectives. His book Cutting the Changes: Jazz Improvisation via Key Centers (Kjos Music) offers musicians of all ages the opportunity to improvise over standard tunes using just their major scales. He is Co-Editor and Contributing Author of Teaching Jazz: A Course of Study (published by NAfME), authored a chapter within Rehearsing The Jazz Band and The Jazzer’s Cookbook (published by Meredith Music), and contributed to Peter Erskine and Dave Black’s The Musician's Lifeline (Alfred). Within the International Association for Jazz Education he served as Editor of the Jazz Education Journal, President of IAJE-IL, International Co-Chair for Curriculum and for Vocal/Instrumental Integration, and Chicago Host Coordinator for the 1997 Conference. He served on the Illinois Coalition for Music Education coordinating committee, worked with the Illinois and Chicago Public Schools to develop standards for multi-cultural music education, and received a curricular grant from the Council for Basic Education. He has also served as Director of IMEA’s All-State Jazz Choir and Combo and of similar ensembles outside of Illinois. He is the only individual to have directed all three genres of Illinois All-State jazz ensembles—combo, vocal jazz choir, and big band—and is the recipient of the Illinois Music Educators Association’s 2001 Distinguished Service Award.

Regarding Jazz Improvisation: Practical Approaches to Grading, Darius Brubeck says, "How one grades turns out to be a contentious philosophical problem with a surprisingly wide spectrum of responses. García has produced a lucidly written, probing, analytical, and ultimately practical resource for professional jazz educators, replete with valuable ideas, advice, and copious references." Jamey Aebersold offers, "This book should be mandatory reading for all graduating music ed students." Janis Stockhouse states, "Groundbreaking. The comprehensive amount of material García has gathered from leaders in jazz education is impressive in itself. Plus, the veteran educator then presents his own synthesis of the material into a method of teaching and evaluating jazz improvisation that is fresh, practical, and inspiring!" And Dr. Ron McCurdy suggests, "This method will aid in the quality of teaching and learning of jazz improvisation worldwide."

About Cutting the Changes, saxophonist David Liebman states, “This book is perfect for the beginning to intermediate improviser who may be daunted by the multitude of chord changes found in most standard material. Here is a path through the technical chord-change jungle.” Says vocalist Sunny Wilkinson, “The concept is simple, the explanation detailed, the rewards immediate. It’s very singer-friendly.” Adds jazz-education legend Jamey Aebersold, “Tony’s wealth of jazz knowledge allows you to understand and apply his concepts without having to know a lot of theory and harmony. Cutting the Changes allows music educators to present jazz improvisation to many students who would normally be scared of trying.”

Of his jazz curricular work, Standard of Excellence states: “Antonio García has developed a series of Scope and Sequence of Instruction charts to provide a structure that will ensure academic integrity in jazz education.” Wynton Marsalis emphasizes: “Eight key categories meet the challenge of teaching what is historically an oral and aural tradition. All are important ingredients in the recipe.” The Chicago Tribune has highlighted García’s “splendid solos...virtuosity and musicianship...ingenious scoring...shrewd arrangements...exotic orchestral colors, witty riffs, and gloriously uninhibited splashes of dissonance...translucent textures and elegant voicing” and cited him as “a nationally noted jazz artist/educator...one of the most prominent young music educators in the country.” Down Beat has recognized his “knowing solo work on trombone” and “first-class writing of special interest.” The Jazz Report has written about the “talented trombonist,” and Cadence noted his “hauntingly lovely” composing as well as CD production “recommended without any qualifications whatsoever.” Phil Collins has said simply, “He can be in my band whenever he wants.” García is also the subject of an extensive interview within Bonanza: Insights and Wisdom from Professional Jazz Trombonists (Advance Music), profiled along with such artists as Bill Watrous, Mike Davis, Bill Reichenbach, Wayne Andre, John Fedchock, Conrad Herwig, Steve Turre, Jim Pugh, and Ed Neumeister.

The Secretary of the Board of The Midwest Clinic and a past Advisory Board member of the Brubeck Institute, Mr. García has adjudicated festivals and presented clinics in Canada, Europe, Australia, The Middle East, and South Africa, including creativity workshops for Motorola, Inc.’s international management executives. The partnership he created between VCU Jazz and the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music at the University of KwaZulu-Natal merited the 2013 VCU Community Engagement Award for Research. He has served as adjudicator for the International Trombone Association’s Frank Rosolino, Carl Fontana, and Rath Jazz Trombone Scholarship competitions and the Kai Winding Jazz Trombone Ensemble competition and has been asked to serve on Arts Midwest’s “Midwest Jazz Masters” panel and the Virginia Commission for the Arts “Artist Fellowship in Music Composition” panel. He was published within the inaugural edition of Jazz Education in Research and Practice and has been repeatedly published in Down Beat; JAZZed; Jazz Improv; Music, Inc.; The International Musician; The Instrumentalist; and the journals of NAfME, IAJE, ITA, American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Percussive Arts Society, Arts Midwest, Illinois Music Educators Association, and Illinois Association of School Boards. Previous to VCU, he served as Associate Professor and Coordinator of Combos at Northwestern University, where he taught jazz and integrated arts, was Jazz Coordinator for the National High School Music Institute, and for four years directed the Vocal Jazz Ensemble. Formerly the Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University, he was selected by students and faculty there as the recipient of a 1992 “Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching” award and nominated as its candidate for 1992 CASE “U.S. Professor of the Year” (one of 434 nationwide). He is recipient of the VCU School of the Arts’ 2015 Faculty Award of Excellence for his teaching, research, and service and in 2021 was inducted into the Conn-Selmer Institute Hall of Fame. Visit his web site at <www.garciamusic.com>.

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