A Brief Introduction To Jazz Arranging

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As a high school student, I was always curious about composing and arranging for jazz ensembles. The process seemed very mysterious and I always figured it was above my head. When I began studying arranging and composition, I learned that it was really much simpler than I had imagined, but nobody had ever demystified it for me.

There are many techniques for harmonizing jazz tunes and what works best depends on the situation and personal taste, but there are a few things to remember to make things easier:

• It’s usually a good idea to keep the harmony below the melody. The melody should almost always be in the top voice. If the harmony crosses above the melody, things can get confusing and you lose the sound of the melody, it gets buried. Intervals a minor 9^th apart often create an unwanted dissonance and clash with the sound of the chord, try to avoid them when harmonizing. It is also usually undesirable to have a note a half step below the melody note as it creates a strong dissonance and makes it less clear.
• The simplest way to harmonize a melody is to put the basic chord tones underneath it. For example: If you’re writing for three horns and the melody note you want to harmonize is a G, and the chord playing is a C Major7, you want to put the 3^rd and 7^th of the C Major7 under the G (the 5^th). So if there’s a Trumpet, Tenor Sax and Trombone, the Trumpet will play the G, the Tenor the E below it and the Trombone the B below the E. The rhythm section will probably play the root, so you don’t have to worry about having that in the horns.
• With more instruments, you have more options. When writing for 5 horns there are many different textures you can create using different harmonization techniques. For backgrounds and long notes, a more open, full sound is often desirable. A simple type of voicing you can create is called a Spread. Spreads consist of the basic chord sound (usually the root, 3^rd and 7^th) in the bottom three voices, and tensions (9s, 11s and 13s) in the top voices.
• Say we’re writing for Trumpet, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trombone and Bari Sax. If the melody note is a D and the chord is a C Major7 and we want to create a spread voicing to harmonize the D (the 9^th), we first put the basic chord sound in the bottom three voices: the Bari, Trombone and Tenor. Put the root on the bottom, the 7^th above that and the 3^rd above the 7^th. In the Alto we can put the 5^th or the 13^th (the other available tension besides the 9^th). The 13^th is a more interesting color, so we’ll use that. The Trumpet is playing the melody (the D) on top. So, from the bottom up we have this voicing: C, B, E, A, D. These voicings are very open and full, so they don’t work well in fast passages because they can get muddy and heavy sounding.

This is a very simplified introduction to arranging. There are many other harmonization techniques (drop voicings, voicings in fourths, clusters, etc.) but ultimately they are a means to an end. Try experimenting to see what works well in different situations and listen to recordings and look at scores of the great orchestrators like Oliver Nelson, Gil Evans and, of course, Duke Ellington.

A few good books to check out on arranging and composition are:

• Modern Jazz Voicings: Arranging for Small and Medium Ensembles by Ted Pease and Ken Pullig
• Arranging for Large Jazz Ensemble by Ken Pullig and Dick Lowell
• Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice by Ted Pease

All three are part of the Berklee Jazz Composition and arranging curriculum and are published by Berklee Press.