Edition: Jazz Big Band Arrangement

Description: Swing - Medium Difficult

Publisher: Jazz Lines Publications

Ever since its appearance as the second track on the Count Basie Orchestra’s April in Paris album (1955), Corner Pocket has been recognized as one of the most iconic entries in the group's extensive library. In many ways, Ernie Wilkins's arrangement of Freddie Green's melody could be considered a prime example of the Basie sound: a simple, riff-based melody, comfortable amounts of room for solos, and a thrilling shout chorus that spans the band’s entire dynamic range.

Beginning, as expected, with a Basie piano introduction to set up the tempo, the classic melody is initially carried in unison by the saxes, with a couple of brass punctuations at the end of each strain. A band-within-a-band handles the bridge, which breaks into harmony, before coming back to unison when the muted trumpets take over for the final section. The trumpet solo chorus that follows is split halfway between two members of the section, with some simple but prodding horn backgrounds to keep the momentum going. Following this is a solo chorus of tenor sax, this time without any horn section accompaniment.

Once the soloists have had their say, the volume level tails off to a bare minimum for the first portion of the ensemble shout. A few sudden shifts occur through this chorus, but it’s important for your ensemble to generally hold back a bit. The second half of the shout chorus is built around the tune’s second main melody strain, and features the band playing at full power around a series of thrilling drum fills. There’s a quick break in the action via an eight bar piano solo, with the band seeming to wind down a bit before one final drum fill brings things to a jubilant close.

Two notes:
1) The saxophone parts for this publication have been transcribed, as the originals have been lost over the years. The brass parts, however, are all from original source material. The studio recording as well as two videos of the band performing this arrangement were used as source material for our transcription.

2) The original version of this arrangement was written with three trombone parts. At some point, an auxiliary 4th trombone part was added. This part fills in some inner ensemble harmony, so if you play with a full section, the 3rd trombone part should be played by your bass trombonist.

 

Full Score
2 Alto Saxophones
2 Tenor Saxophones
Baritone Saxophone
4 Trumpets
4 Trombones (Trombone 4 Optional)
Guitar
Piano
Acoustic Bass
Drum Set

Trumpet 1: D6
All Trombones: Bb4