Trent Austin Meditations

Meditations for Solo Trumpet 

Trent Austin

Track information and brief program notes:

                First and foremost all of these tracks are 1^st takes as this CD was mostly freely improvised. It represents true “art-in-the-moment”. Therefore there is not that much I can really describe but I hope these brief notes do help.

The Saddest Of All Keys

The track, "The Saddest of All Keys", is a free improvisation in the key of D minor. This is my homage to "This is Spinal Tap". Yes, it is the saddest of all keys ;) The basic form in my head migrated from Dminor to Gminor with a simple chord progression evolving.

Opalescence

This is an improvisation on my Flugelhorn... I chose the the title because I love the fact the flugel can create so many different tonal colors. I hope you enjoy this!

How High is The Sky

This is a loose improvisation based on the chord changes to one of my favorite tunes, How Deep is the Ocean. The great thing about jazz is that you can't copyright chord Changes. I wouldn't call this tune a "contrafact" in the academic sense. :)

Sad Reprise

Here's a reprise of "The Saddest", featuring a custom patch I created with my Digitech Vocal 300 multi-effects unit. I've customized all of the patches you hear on this album.

Milesian

This improvisation when I heard the playback it reminded me a bit of the opening to "In a Silent Way". I also used the piano and also the pedal sustain to create more colors and neat effects. I hope you enjoy this clip as it's one of my favorites of the disc. Playing 5ths and high Bb's with one hand isn't an easy thing to do! :)

Peanuts Battle

This track was aptly titled by my fabulous wife. In this brief clip I try to expand my range while playing the plunger (No. 5 if you're interested... the stem was removed before performance). Hope you enjoy the homage to CB's teacher :)

P.W.M.

Here's another track utilizing a very custom digital patch I've created just for this album. The titled has been abbreviated but if you think long and hard you might be able to figure it out :).

Wanna​-​Be Guitar Hero

Here's a bonus album-only download that shows the "kid rocker" in me. I used another custom patch from my effects unit. I hope I make it past level 2!

Reflections

This is one of my favorite tunes of all time and I thought would fit the concept of this album quite nicely. This tune's peacefulness wouldn't really tell people it was written by Monk! I hope you enjoy this version. For gearheads I’m using my old 1939 Martin Handcraft Imperial on this cut for that “saloon” sound.

Wahhka​-​Wahhka

Here's a title that probably says it all. This is another brief improvisation with the assistance of my Digitech Vocal 300 pedal box.  

Parallelogram

This improvisation utilizes the patch I made for parallel 5ths. I can just hear my former theory Professor at UNH John   Rogers laughing and cringing at the same time! This is another brief improvisation with the assistance of my Digitech Vocal 300 pedal box.  

Pedal Power Duo

This is another clip with me playing piano and trumpet at the same time.   I originally got this idea by watching the amazing Markus Stockhausen improvise and comp for himself. While I can’t do that nearly as well as he can I enjoyed the use of the piano and trumpet mix.   I hope you enjoy the effect of the piano sustain when you play the trumpet directly into it.   Both of the piano clips were recorded at the Melrose First Congregational Church in the sanctuary.   Thank you to the entire church staff for allowing me to use the tremendous sanctuary.

Piccolo This!

I love improvising on piccolo trumpet. Perhaps it was the video of the Gil Evans Orchestra with Lew Soloff jamming out with his shiny Gold P5-4 that captured my interest when I was in high school. I feel the piccolo while limiting due to less of an overall range allows me to float more in the upper register. This was yet another quick improvisation on the horn that I thought I’d share.

Iridescence

Here is another brief improvisation on my flugelhorn.

To J​.​C.

This is also a favorite track of mine from the church session on 3/23/09. This is a very loose interpretation of the changes to the Coltrane classic "Dear Lord". I was going to call this Dear John but there's a Freddie Hubbard tune with that title. I'm playing my flugelhorn on this clip and found the symmetry of opening in D minor and closing in D Major great bookends to the CD.