VICTROLA MUSIC

For Flute, Saxophone, Trumpet, Horn and Trombone

An idea that had been floating around my head for a while was some kind of treatment of Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 poem ‘The Wild Party’, which I discovered through John Michael LaChuisa’s 2000 musical of the same name. In the poem, a description of a wild party held at the house of vaudeville entertainers Burrs and Queenie. This seemed a perfect vehicle for a jazz tinged piece. The poem mentions a Victrola record player that Queenie ‘borrows’ off of a man living in the apartment below. Inspired by this I wrote four short ‘records’ as a kind of a soundtrack to the poem: a Charleston, a ballad based on Gershwin’s ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’, a record in Ellington’s ‘Jungle’ style, and a blues influenced by Ma Rainey. Each movement refers to a specific mention of the music that is fuelling the debauched and reckless world of Queenie, Burrs, and the company they keep. The records themselves are the tropes and stylistic features of 20’s jazz run through the twisted and grimacing prism of March’s poem.

"A wacky whimsical “soundtrack” to Joseph Moncure March’s poem" The Scotsman

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