9/21/2019 More Noir, Linear Harmony and Jeff Beal

On Saturday, Sept. 21st the Academy of Scoring Arts will host the latest installment of my Ellington Study Group.  I am excited to have as a guest speaker Jeff Beal (House of Cards, Monk, Blackfish, The Queen of Versailles). This jazz-oriented discussion will continue our exploration about scoring techniques in film noir. Jeff is an exceptionally creative and prolific composer and has a wealth of wisdom to share. Don’t miss this unforgettable meeting with a modern legend in film and television scoring.

I’ll start by give a talk about harmony: linear, chromatic, and non-functional harmony are all parts of the jazz and film composer’s “noir” toolkit, with roots in late 19th and early 20th century classical music. In the 40’s and 50’s. jazz and film composers and performers drew heavily on this tradition. We’ll start with Billy Strayhorn’s arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Blue Serge” from 1947, then I’ll give a quick overview of some concepts of linear/chromatic harmony from a jazz and modern music composer’s perspective. Then we’ll then look at a few more cues from Elmer Bernstein’s 1957 score for “Sweet Smell of Success” as well as a some excerpts of a recent scoring project of  my own.

Jeff Beal will talk about his jazz influences, his trumpet background, and noir chromatic harmony in his highly lauded score for “House of Cards”, and about his upcoming commission from the LA Master Chorale.