Moonglow

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Since this week's reading is about jazz choirs/musical theater let's listen to some jazz. This is the Iowa All-State Jazz choir singing "Moonglow" by Darmon Meader. My choir director from home was a big Darmon Meader fan and I have to say his arrangement have yet to let me down.

Obviously these kids are good; they're in All-State. Their blend is fantastic. There can't be more than one or two people on a a part but I don't think one part dominates too heavily over all the others. Then again this is helped tremendously by the fact that they are individually mic-ed. They hold their own on some of the more jazzy chords and part splits. There is not much scooping up to or down to notes. Everything was very clean yet still grooved.

For a jazz choir that doesn't use classical tone and pure vowels all the time, I liked both. The sound still resonates well (this could be because of the aide of microphones) and at no part do I feel uncomfortable for any voice parts. Much of it sounds easy, effortless and fun. Even though they are singing a less classical piece for the most part I find their vowels to be very clear. On words such as "glow" and "remember" they don't let the off glides creep in to soon.

This is probably because of the nature of the music they're singing but all of them seem engaged and having fun.

I liked their set-up, alternating between girls and boys and hopefully between voice parts. It allows all the groups to hear one another and spreads the sound of the different voices out. I might have made the arch deeper in order for the group to hear one another better but because of the microphones and monitors it probably didn't matter all that much.