Julius Hemphill : Composer

Compositions M-R

R & B

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Composition for saxophone quartet (two alto, tenor, and baritone). The archive includes two different scores in holograph for this work. The first is found in Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MMN1), and the second, with different harmonies, is in Music Manuscript Notebook 4 (MMN4). The World Saxophone Quartet included the piece on Steppin’ with the World Saxophone Quartet (1979). The archive includes these parts in holograph. This composition was also incorporated into the large-scale work “Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera,” where it is performed by a saxophone sextet. 

Found on: Steppin’ with the World Saxophone Quartet.

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Pulsating Shadows

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Possibly fragmentary composition for soprano saxophone and bass. The photocopied holograph score in the Julius Hemphill Papers includes a “prelude” with a written bass solo and a “postlude” after an improvisation section.

From Marty Ehrlich: Drums could fill this work out, but it seems as if there may be more music than what is written here.

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Pull It

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Composition for soprano saxophone, guitar, bass, and drums. The archive includes a score in holograph and professionally copied parts for saxophone, bass, drums, and guitar. The guitar part suggests that Hemphill added this instrument after he had decided on the others, with the note in Hemphill’s hand: “same as the soprano line, except inked-in notes.”

From Marty Ehrlich: This is a 20-measure piece, with chord changes, and a repeating rhythmic pattern, with changing notes in the bass. Alex Cline recently told me that this work was performed by the JAH Band. The archive includes a rehearsal tape of this piece as performed by Hemphill and a bassist.

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Plateau

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Composition for alto saxophone, cello, and percussion, recorded on Raw Materials and Residuals (1978). The Julius Hemphill Papers includes parts for alto saxophone and cello/bass, as well as a part for French horn in Music Manuscript Notebook 5 (MMN5), which duplicates the cello/bass part.

Found on: Raw Materials and Residuals.

From Marty Ehrlich: Baikida Carroll played French horn in the 1970s, and Hemphill wrote some parts for him on that instrument. (Carroll recently told me he remembers playing this work with Hemphill, but always on trumpet.) A score could be made of the two melodic parts in conjunction with listening to the trio recording on Raw Materials.

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Plain Song

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Composition for alto saxophone, trumpet, cello, bass, and guitar, also arranged for saxophone quartet (two alto, tenor, and baritone), recorded by the World Saxophone Quartet on W.S.Q. (1981). The Julius Hemphill Papers has various instrumental parts for these different versions and a photocopy of the score for the background parts, but no full score.

Found on: W.S.Q.

From Marty Ehrlich: If you combine the long eighth note line in the trumpet part in the A section with the “background score,” you get the material of this composition, whether it be for saxophone quartet or small group. In the small group, Hemphill wrote a chord progression of dominant seventh chords changing every two beats. Baikida Carroll includes “Plain Song” in his list of pieces from the Hemphill Quartet/Quintet repertoire in his notebook of trumpet parts in the Julius Hemphill Papers.

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