Big band project finally put to bed

After a five-month writing, editing, arranging and orchestration process Jeff Meegan and I finally finished working on this mammoth big band project just a few days ago.

After I was initially commissioned to write eight songs for Heavy Hitters (four Sinatra-style rat-pack style songs and four in the 40′s dance band mould), I decided that this was definitely a job for two – so I called the multi-talented singer/songwriter, drummer, percussionist  and all around musician Jeff Meegan. (www.jeffmeegan.com),

Firstly, Jeff and I produced piano-vocal versions of the songs we conceived. Our initial thoughts were that we would keep the two sets of four songs as separate sounding projects – so that they be more useful to music supervisors working on period pieces. For this reason, we composed entirely in one style first (50′s) and then moved on to the 40′s work subsequently.

We decided that we were going to work with an orchestrator part way through the pre-production phase, as timescales were quite tight, so we contacted one of LA’s finest – Curtis McKonly.(www.curtismckonly.com),

With years of experience and a long list of credits, we both agreed he’d be a “safe pair of hands” and he proved to be that and much more. Alongside the recordings, I produced score-sketches for Curtis and I indicated exactly what I was looking for, whilst allowing him enough create leeway to have sufficient input into the process.

One of the most crucial aspects of this kind of project is the quality of the players, and we turned to one of the finest big bands in the U.S.A – The Rob Parton Big Band. (www.robparton.com). This was a 16-piece, to be conducted by me, with a line up as follows:

  • 4 Trumpets
  • 2 Tenor Trombones
  • 1 Bass Trombone
  • 3 Alto Saxes (sometimes with clarinet or Flute)
  • 2 Tenor Saxes
  • Guitar
  • Piano
  • Bass
  • Drums

Once the band was booked, we were left to figure out the logistics of finding diary dates to suit all, and then dealing with the fine details, from flights to Chicago (where the album was to be recorded in Hinge Studios), to the huge job of printing scores and parts.

For cost and time reasons, the band parts to all 8 songs had to be recorded in one 6-hour session. So, recording was pretty intense and there was no time for niceties. We worked tirelessly with the band, rehearsing and recording, with carefully planned breaks to allow time to check the playbacks. Once complete,we took band files on a very large hard drive back to Jeff’s Chicago based project-studio to start the mixing process

The mixing process took place over a very intense 3 day period, with days running into 20 hours apiece. Mixes were checked against many other recordings to get the crispest, most authentic big band sound possible and time-off was only taken to let our ears recover.

This was the final part of the band recording process, but it left us one final job – vocal recording. In addition to vocals by Jeff, vocals were also due to be recorded by Alex McDougall in Boston.

Following my return, vocal recording took place in the Boston studio of Crit Harmon. (see 20′s Jazz project for details). Alex McDougall was the vocalist of choice and the sessions took place over a live Skype link so that I could produce the session personally. This just left us the final mixes to do, which were expertly handled by Jeff to complete this remarkable tag-team project. Alex can also be heard singing on the Heavy Hitters 20′s and 30′s Jazz projects.