Southcoast Gold

Description

Drawing inspiration from scat-singing on the Leon Russell tune “This Masquerade” from the George Benson album called “Breezin.” Composer Peter Blair took several licks from George’s extended improvisation and put them together to form the basis for “Southcoast Gold.” Features cool minor lines your ensemble will love and could use for future impov ideas.

Program Notes

One of my favorite albums when I was in high school was the George Benson classic called “Breezin’”. The track that I was knocked out by was the Leon Russell tune “This Masquerade” which featured George and his signature scat-singing in unison with his guitar lines. I took several of the licks from his extended improvisation and put them together to form the basis for “Southcoast Gold”. When I started working on this piece, I was reminded about the intricacy of his interweaving lines over a simple harmonic vamp and the resulting chart just seemed to fall into place for me.