A Touch of Jazz!: Concert Band Conductor Score

Brubaker nails the tricky job of medley construction by giving each tune enough space to breathe while maintaining momentum across the whole piece. The arrangements let Grade 3 bands sound genuinely swinging rather than merely competent, which means your students will actually enjoy playing it and audiences will hear real jazz, not a simplified approximation.

Six and a half minutes of pure swing energy, moving through some of the coolest jazz standards in American music. The medley structure keeps things fresh; just when a groove settles in, you're turning the page to something new, with each tune retaining its own character while the whole piece moves like a single coherent statement.

Directors programming a jazz-focused concert or looking to bring swing vocabulary into a mixed repertoire program without stepping up to advanced difficulty levels. This works equally well for concert and festival contexts when you want to showcase your band's stylistic range.

• The opening needs forward energy. Resist the urge to drag; locked-in eighth-note rhythms in the reeds set the tone for everything that follows.
• Balance 'Round Midnight carefully so the melodic voice cuts through the harmony without the band pushing. This is where phrasing maturity shows.
• Treat the rhythm section changes between tunes as part of the story. Each tune has its own groove, so make those transitions clear without losing continuity.
• The tag ending rewards a clean, confident finish. Lock the ensemble and commit fully to that final moment.

Schedule this as a high-energy second half opener or a closer depending on your concert arc. The piece sits perfectly as a stylistic counterpoint to your concert band classics, signaling to the audience that your program is both varied and rooted in genuine musical tradition.

• Jazz articulation and phrasing conventions
• Swing eighth-note feel and groove awareness
• Reading and executing syncopated rhythmic patterns
• Balancing melody and harmony in jazz contexts
• Maintaining forward motion through rapid sectional changes
• Responding to stylistic cues within a single long-form arrangement