Still Thinking 

by Evan Kappelman
Temple University Jazz Band

Still Thinking by Evan Kappelman will be available to stream and download from all major distributors on December 27, 2024.

“Still Thinking” began as the first part of a three-part suite I wrote for jazz quintet in the spring of 2023. The piece was meant to be a challenge for not only the band, but for me as a composer to balance strong but simple melodicism with more complex harmonic and rhythmic figures. I began expanding it for a large ensemble after being inspired by the performing and recording process for “Red Braid,” written by my best friend and fellow Temple University Jazz Band (TUJB) member Banks Sapnar, which also began as a tune for quintet. Like the original iteration, I felt the composition process for “Still Thinking” was very “stream-of-consciousness,” and after years of writing (and never finishing) charts for big band, I finally felt ready to put this one out into the world!

The title comes from my inability to name my compositions. After weeks of our director, Terell Stafford, asking me what my piece was called as we prepared to perform it at the True Blue Jazz Festival, I still didn’t have an answer. He wrote “Still Thinking” on his setlist. For some reason (perhaps in part laziness), I decided that that was a great title and it stuck!

While the title is rather tongue-in-cheek, the piece represents my desire to balance the tradition of jazz music with more modern sensibilities. It signifies our never-ending journey to dig deeper into what the essence of this music is, as well as our desire to better ourselves as artists, musicians and human beings. I also intended to show the virtuosity of our relatively young band by highlighting how we can transition from loud, fast, technically challenging passages to softer and more intimate ones within a single tune.

I want to offer my thanks to Terell Stafford, our director, as well as the members of the TUJB for their dedication and for bringing this piece to life. I also want to thank my teachers Dick Oatts, Tim Warfield and especially Bruce Barth for aiding in the compositional aspect of this tune, and to my development as an artist as a whole.

--Evan Kappelman

Performers

Temple University Jazz Band
Terell Stafford, director

SAXOPHONE
Christian Ertl
Ray Kaneko
Evan Kappelman
Anthony Singer
Zach Spondike

TRUMPET
John Brunozzi
Nick Dugo
Banks Sapnar 
Jesse Deems

TROMBONE
Drew Sedlacsik
Laura Orzehoski
Scott Alberti
John Kim

RHYTHM SECTION
Mike Raymond, guitar
Anthony Aldissi, piano
Emmy Rota, bass
Maria Marmarou, drums

Recorded April 2, 2024 at Temple Performing Arts Center.

Robert Stroker and David Pasbrig, producers
David Pasbrig, recording, mixing and mastering engineer
Nick Kruse and Isaac Kraus, assistant engineers