About three years ago I attended a Jazz Ambassador’s concert in Chicago at the Midwest Clinic. At it, the director spoke of a number of resources that they make available free to the public. One of their offerings was a complete Jazz chart entitled Porch Swingin; we played it at one of last year’s concert.
There are a number of free resources including lesson plans, music charts, articles and other resources that would be of interest to any music educator (not just U.S. music educators!). The U.S. military bands’ also offer requestable free CDs of most of their literature. As you may know, these bands ARE the heritage of our own concert band programs in the U.S. and you can be sure that the recordings they offer are of the highest qualities both in musicianship and audio fidelity.
The U.S. Army Field Band Resources are found here and here is a list of some of their offerings:
The Legacy of Aaron Copland
A recording by The Soldiers’ Chorus
Inside the Big Band -Porch Swingin
Educational video by The Jazz Ambassadors’
The Joy of Singing
Educational video by The Soldiers’ Chorus
In My Dream
A Celebration of African-American Music
Seven Hills (CD offered online only)
Includes printable charts and transcribed solos
The U.S. Navy Band Music Educational Resources can be found here and here are some of their music article offerings:
The Percussion Section in the Concert Hall
My Transition from Performer to Conductor
Rotary Valve Maintenance
Why On Earth Does My French Horn Section Sound Like That?
Keeping The Saxophone Quartet in Tune
So You Think You Want To Be An Arranger
At the end of this week, I am going to post a more comprehensive link structure to/about the U.S. military bands and their information.
The Navy Band also offers clinics, rehearsal observations, a concerto competition for high schoolers and the annual Saxophone Symposium. CDs are distributed free of charge through libraries and educational institutions. The Navy Band also has downloadable online recordings.
Prof. Joseph,
Thanks for sharing this valuable resource, I included the link on my weekly newsletter.
By the way, I thought you would be interested in this or may know someone else who’s interested – http://jobs.problogger.net/view/595
Thanks for the great link! These recordings are always great to have and the price is certainly right! :smile:
I am surprised however to see that all of this music is not freely downloadable. :shock:
It would seem to me… that if the ultimate intention of giving these recordings away for free was to benefit education, that they would be more apt to distribute them in the easiest way possible and to the greatest amount of people too.
This could be a great site to direct kids to for further listening!
Thanks for helping spread the word about our educational products. We love to hear from educators who are using our recordings and videos. If you’re an educator and haven’t signed up for our mailings, please visit http://www.armyfieldband.com for more information. We are currently in the process of reprinting most of our back catalog and converting our videos to DVD. As soon as all those materials are manufactured we’ll be mailing them out as fast as possible.
As for downloadable music on the site we are continually trying to increase the amount of music available but there are many copyright issues to overcome. Please check our website from time to time as we will add downloadable content as we can. We do offer a feature on the site called the Army Bandstand. This is a collaborative project between the Army Field Band and the Army Band and contains most of both groups’ catalog of recordings in a constantly streaming shuffled format. You should check it out. Additionally, all of our music is available on most of the popular commercial download sites.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment and if anyone has any questions please give us a call or send an email.