One of world's finest musical minds, composer/arranger Patrick Williams has released a new album of original big band music. He probably is best known for his work on TV show themes including After Mash, The Bob Newhart Show, Mary Tyler Moore, Columbo, and The Streets of San Francisco, just to name a few. He won multiple Emmy and Grammy awards, and has been nominated multiple times over for those and other prestigious awards.
Besides movies and television, Patrick Williams writes really unique and original big band charts.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sal Lozano back in 2008. I was in the Los Angeles area and he invited me to sit in on a recording session for Disney. No, I wasn't playing, just sitting back and listening to him and other great woodwind players Dan Higgins and Chris Bleth. Afterwords, Sal and I ate dinner with Dan before I got to watch them perform with the Wayne Bergeron Big Band. Over the course of that evening, Sal and I had lots of good conversations about music, big bands, and "doubling." Unfortunately, I wasn't recording the conversations, but I found it very interesting that those same topics, and more, appeared when Gordon Goodwin interviewed Sal for his podcast The Big Phat Chat. I highly encourage everyone to subscribe to that podcast. I know Gordon is extremely busy, but maybe he'll produce more episodes if he sees a spike in subscribers. Every episode features great "inside baseball" on what's happening in the music scene in LA as well as an interview with a member of the Big Phat Band. You should go back and listen to every episode, but I think Sal's interview covers lots of good topics musicians both young and old can benefit from listening to.
Big Phat Chat, episode 6 (featuring Sal Lozano Part 1)
Topics in Episode 6 include:
Musicianship in playing 2nd parts
Matching pitch and style with Lead Alto
The chain of command in big band playing
Section playing
Stories of working with other great woodwind players in big bands
One of world's finest musical minds, composer/arranger Patrick Williams has released a new album of original big band music. He probably is best known for his work on TV show themes including After Mash, The Bob Newhart Show, Mary Tyler Moore, Columbo, and The Streets of San Francisco, just to name a few. He won multiple Emmy and Grammy awards, and has been nominated multiple times over for those and other prestigious awards. 