Rainforests (2023)

Bill Cunliffe

I. Black River
II. Midnight Island
III. Batucada

The COVID time was a really hard one for me, with much personal stress in my life for many reasons, and although I was able to continue to teach and arrange music with much of my normal efficiency, I was fairly tapped out creatively. But nothing rejuvenates a composer more than an imposing deadline, and it was Terell Stafford and Dean Robert Stroker of Temple University who furnished this for me. 

For years, I’ve been intrigued by trees. Not only the trees in my neighborhood of Studio City, California, but the trees that keep us safe and healthy such as the tropical mangrove. Its tangle of roots allows the trees to handle the daily rise and fall of tides and slow the movement of tidal waters, causing sediments to build up the muddy bottom.

Mangrove forests stabilize the coastline, reducing erosion from storm surges, currents, waves and tides. The intricate root system makes these forests attractive to fish and other organisms seeking food and shelter from predators.

The mangroves in the rainforests are truly the heart of our planet and help keep us alive. I’ve been thinking about them a lot, and the music of the tropics has always been a focus of mine, with the recordings I’ve done of Brazilian and Cuban music, samba and salsa. 

Rather than ruminate for periods of time over the musical material, the imposed deadline forced me to accept the material immediately offered to me… the strange little child-like melodies that often occur to me after dreams, when I wake up. Rather than cast them aside, this time I wrote them down and, accepting the theory of my former teacher at Eastman, Bill Dobbins, that there is “no such thing as a bad idea,” started work on carving these stones into sculptures of music I could be proud of. 

Having three great horn soloists (Terell Stafford, Dick Oatts and Tim Warfield), a great piano soloist (Bruce Barth) and a fabulous symphony orchestra directed by José Luis Domínguez, one of our great conductors, meant I couldn’t go wrong.

The first movement starts with a large battery of percussion playing rainforest-like sounds in the style of a samba, the national dance of Brazil seen all year long, but especially during Mardi Gras, in the streets and barrios. The simple four-note melody is presented and twisted and turned by Tim Warfield in a variety of ways. 

Movement two is a cross between a Mexican bolero and a Brazilian bossa, cast as a slow romantic movement. The great Dick Oatts presents the theme as a series of descending thirds, then improvises for a while. The movement ends with a cadenza featuring rainforest sounds as before, with the soloists adding bird calls and other exotic sounds. 

Finally, the energetic street dance, but with added movements into meters of 5, 6 and 7, is stated by Terell Stafford and echoed by the orchestra. Hints of jazz big band figures lead into complex rhythmic figures you could get lost in like the rainforest! 

A transitional passage built on a Brazilian drum rhythm leads into the final climax, a batucada-like street dance as I saw in Rio so many years ago but overlaid with jazz soloists and dissonant harmonies.

Program note by Bill Cunliffe.

Stream and Download

Rainforests is available for streaming and download on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Pandora, and Deezer. 

About the Composer

Bill Cunliffe is a jazz pianist, composer and Grammy Award-winning arranger. He got his start playing and arranging for drummer Buddy Rich, and touring with Frank Sinatra. In 1989 Bill won the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he performed with the Clayton Brothers and the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra for ten years, and currently plays with the Joe La Barbera quintet (former drummer with Bill Evans) and with his trio. He has also performed with James Moody, Benny Golson, Red Rodney, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, Freddie Hubbard, Bob Berg, Junior Cook, Sonny Fortune, Woody Shaw, Michael Brecker, George Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Houston Person, Hubert Laws and Art Blakey. He performs in the U.S. and around the world as a leader and sideman as well as a soloist with symphony orchestras.

His latest release, currently receiving significant airplay nationwide, is “Border Widow’s Lament” (2022, Night Is Alive Records) with MarJn Wind, bass, and Tim Horner, drums. Previously released was TRIO (Le Coq, 2021), which features bassist John Patitucci and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. Other releases include Nostalgia in Corcovado (BCM+D, 2014), River Edge, New Jersey, featuring bassist Martin Wind and drummer Tim Horner (Azica, 2013), and Overture, Waltz and Rondo for jazz piano, trumpet and orchestra (BCM+D, 2012). Cunliffe performed the work with trumpeter Terell Stafford and the Temple University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Luis Biava. The recording won Cunliffe his fifth Grammy nomination, in the Best Instrumental Composition category.

In 2012 Cunliffe also released his Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra, with tubist Jim Self and the Hollywood Ensemble, with Cunliffe conducting (Metre, 2012). That Time of Year (Metre, 2011), Cunliffe’s album of solo improvisations on Christmas carols, was described as a “tour de force” in the Los Angeles Times.

Cunliffe’s other recordings show his affinity for Latin rhythms (Bill in Brazil, Imaginación and his Grammy-nominated trumpet concerto fourth stream … La Banda) and pay tribute to some of his musical heroes, including Bud Powell, Oliver Nelson and Paul Simon.

Cunliffe wrote the score for the film On the Shoulders of Giants, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s homage to the Harlem Rens basketball team of the 1920s and ’30s. The film received an NAACP Image Award for Best Documentary. Cunliffe’s soundtrack was nominated for Best Album.

Cunliffe’s books Jazz Keyboard Toolbox and Jazz Inventions for Keyboard (Alfred Music Publishing) have become standard reference works. Uniquely Christmas (2012) was a book of arrangements inspired by his album That Time of Year, and Uniquely Familiar: Standards for Advanced Solo Piano was published in 2010.

Cunliffe was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement for “West Side Story Medley,” on the album Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson (Resonance, 2009). In addition to receiving five Grammy nominations, he is a two-time Emmy nominee.

The Los Angeles Jazz Society honored Cunliffe in 2010 with its Composer/Arranger Award. That year he was also named a Distinguished Faculty Member of the College of the Arts at Cal State Fullerton, where he is a jazz studies professor. He also teaches at the Skidmore Jazz Institute and the Vail Jazz Workshop.

Cunliffe grew up in Andover, Mass. He studied jazz at Duke University with pianist Mary Lou Williams and received his master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music. He is a member of the Cincinnati Jazz Hall of Fame.

Performers

Temple University Studio Orchestra
José Luis Domínguez, conductor

Terell Stafford, trumpet
Dick Oatts, alto saxophone
Tim Warfield, tenor saxophone
Bruce Barth, piano
Mike Boone, bass
Justin Faulkner, drums

Temple University Studio Orchestra

VIOLIN I 
Alexandr Kislitsyn, concertmaster 
Iuliia Kuzmina, associate concertmaster 
Yuan Tian, assistant concertmaster 
Zi Wang
Irina Rostomashvili 
Taisiya Losmakova 
Samuel Allan-Chapkovski 
Suhan Liang 
Minghao Zhu 
Sofia Solomyanskaya 
Alexander Covelli 
Juan Yanez 
J Pelton 
Eunice China 
Kyungmin Kim 

VIOLIN II 
Andrew Stump, principal 
Abigail Dickson, associate principal 
Sherry Chen, assistant principal 
Kyle Stevens 
Ryujin Jensen 
Yucheng Liao 
Katherine Lebedev 
Congling Chen 
Esmeralda Lastra 
Linda Askenazi Mochon 
Alysha Delgado 
Alyssa Symmonds 
Nicholas Sontag 

VIOLA
Adam Brotnitsky, principal 
Jasmine Harris, associate principal 
Arik Anderson, assistant principal 
Meghan Holman
Tara Pilato 
AJ Stacy 
Shannon Merlino 

CELLO
Leigh Brown, co-principal 
Brannon Rovins, co-principal 
Samuel Divirgilio, associate principal 
Lily Eckman 
Max Culp 
Alfonso Gutierrez 
Marcela Reina 
Chloe Kranz 
Gevon Goddard 
Lily Perrotta 
Alison Park 
Samay Ruparelia 
Yohanna Heyer 
Jonah Rose 

DOUBLE BASS
Jia Binder, principal 
Mohan Bellamkonda, associate principal 
Daniel Virgen, assistant principal 
Sophia Kelsall

FLUTE
Anabel Torres, principal
Samantha Humen
Nicole Hom

PICCOLO
Anabel Torres

OBOE
Amanda Rearden, principal
Kay Meyer

CLARINET
Anthony Bithell, principal
Antonello DiMatteo

BASSOON
Rick Barrantes, principal
Adam Kraynak

CONTRABASSOON
Joshua Schairer

HORN
Amanda Staab, principal
Hanna Eide
Olivia Martinez
Aidan Lewis
Jordan Spivack

HARP
Tina Zhang

PERCUSSION
Scott Breadman
Garrett Davis
YoungGwang Hwang
Alvin Macesaro
Milo Paperman
Alex Snelling
Yeonju You

SAXOPHONE
Christian Ertl, alto I
Adam Abrams, alto II
Evan Kappelman, tenor I
Jason Blythe, tenor II
Zachary Spondike, baritone

TRUMPET
John Brunozzi, trumpet I
Nick Dugo, trumpet II
Andrew Esch, trumpet III
Banks Sapnar, trumpet IV

TROMBONE
Drew Sedlacsik, trombone I
Laura Orzehoski, trombone II
Michael Kaplan, trombone III
John Kim, bass trombone

RHYTHM
Anthony Aldissi, piano
Mike Raymond, guitar
Dan McCain, bass
Maria Marmarou, drums

 

Producers: David Pasbrig, Robert Stroker
Recording Engineers: David Pasbrig, John Harris
Assistant Engineers: Nick Kruse, Isaac Kraus, Jack Maynard, Luke Kiernan
Mixing Engineer: David Pasbrig
Mastering Engineer: Bob Katz

Recorded at the Temple Performing Arts Center on April 18, 2023