Love Is Here to Stay: Jazz Ensemble Conductor Score & Parts

Mark Taylor's Basie-influenced swing charts have always been reliable teaching tools, and this arrangement showcases exactly why. The interplay between small group passages and full band sections keeps the ensemble engaged and gives you multiple teaching moments: sectional balance, ensemble blend, soloistic ownership, and the specificity of Basie-style articulation. It's a chart that works equally well in a read-through and as something worth rehearsing deeply.

Sophisticated and swinging. The arrangement moves with the ease of a Basie band circa the 1950s, all groove and conversational interplay. Moments of intimate small group writing breathe easily before the full band kicks in with warmth and brass punch. It feels like eavesdropping on a real bandstand conversation.

Grade 4 jazz ensembles with solid fundamentals in swing feel and at least one capable trumpet soloist and tenor saxophonist. The piece rewards groups that have rehearsed swing phrasing and understand dynamic shaping; it will expose ensembles still developing those skills but teach them in the process.

• Shape the phrase contours in the sax soli sections with dynamic arcing rather than metronomic precision. Basie's players breathed between ideas, and your ensemble will sound more authentic when they do too.
• Lock the trumpet and tenor solos into the groove by having the rhythm section (especially drums and bass) lock in their feel during the first run-through. Once the soloists hear the pocket, their interpretation will land much more naturally.
• Identify exactly where Taylor has orchestrated contrast between small group voicings and tutti sections, then rehearse those transitions cleanly. These shifts define the whole arrangement.
• Push the top line of the brass response sections with bright articulation and forward dynamic energy. Taylor wrote these passages to punch through the sax soli, not blend underneath.

Program this on a concert where you want to showcase both compositional sophistication and your ensemble's solistic depth. It pairs beautifully with other Gershwin-era standards or as a centerpiece alongside more modern jazz fare. The piece also works as a midseason rehearsal project that challenges reading and phrasing without demanding extended technical passages.

• Swing eighth-note articulation and phrasing in an ensemble context
• Responding to dynamic shifts between small group and full band writing
• Listening for and supporting soloists while maintaining groove
• Basie-style brass voicing and sectional balance
• Jazz interpretation of a composed melody with structural clarity