In nine hours I will be an extra in a Discovery Channel film about the Manhattan Project, set in Santa Fe and Los Alamos New Mexico USA circa 1945 but being filmed in Flagstaff Arizona USA yesterday and today. Parts of Flagstaff still resemble the 1940's more than Santa Fe and Los Alamos and there are a lot less people here making it easier to shoot a period movie, I guess. Any way the bass player in a jazz quartet I play in was the connection for this (it pays not badly) job, which requires us (the jazz quartet) to appear as a jazz band in a club or bar. This will be fun but when I spoke to the bass player this evening he said the producer of this film had asked him if we had any original material recorded. We do not so about 100 minutes ago I sat down at the piano (my other piano, a Baldwin Hamilton studio upright mfd. 1977 ) and wrote this "1945" jazz tune. I callled it "Camp Navajo Air Jazz" because we will be filming tomorrow at Camp Navajo, a WWII supply depot about 15 miles west of Flagstaff, and so maybe I can convince the producer to use this original music in this film, after we play "air jazz" to it on camera. Foior those who don't know film music is usually added after the fact, in this case the process is backwards but so what? I would be happy to have a film composition credit, so here it is. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Now I will post this (proof of composition dated by the posting time) and go to sleep, I have to stand around a lot tomorrow.

The funny thing. They don't want a piano in the shot (probably isn't one there) so I will be playing "air trumpet"> Music is a fun job, you never know what will haappen!

This is not for the Piano Society site... yet.

What an interesting story. Knowing how to play an instrument can really take you to unusual places.
My son is in high school marching band and the whole band was asked to be in a movie called the Weather Man which starred Nicholas Cage. They were in a scene of a parade. But alas, the band's scene was cut at the end. Hopefully, you'll get some 'air trumpet' on film.

Anyway, nice little piece.

Good fun ! You just sit down and do that ?
Very cute how your left hand mimicks a bass guitar or contrabass or whatever it is a jazz combo uses for the bass line. I really thought at the beginning you were playing with someone else.

So did I. I just listened again and I still think that.

He's a trickster, is Arensky

Me too. Can't believe to play the left hand part that mellow and contrabass like and the complete other tone color right hand part at the same time. Maybe micro placement on the treble strings?

Arensky, please tell. How did you played and recorded that?

By the way, nice jazzy piece, I like it a lot. Have fun with your air trumpet thing!

Yes I sit down and do this, but in this case I wrote down what I was doing and played it back several times so it's a composition. I only write down the melody (motive or tune actually), and the chord symbols, in standard jazz practice. So if someone else looked at the chart they might play it completely different, using different chord voicings. Except for the short B" section there is no improvisation here, I just wanted this to exist some where with a date on it before I played it to the movie people; heh, people are often unscrupulous. Not that this would be a big hit but it's best to keep your a*s covered when dealing with industry types.

Lol the lead actress was sick so the dance hall scene was scrapped, the other musicians were kind of ticked off and left but I stuck around and was in several scenes as an extra, dressed as a scientist. We'll see if I survive the cutting room floor...

Hey you thought my LH was a bass? Thank you, that's what I want it to sound like! I've been told that before, glad that some of my work at the piano is successful.

Since we had no original material, I decided to write some. I sat down and played some "up" jazz a la 1945 (or that style filtered through me). I had this idea down after about 5 minutes, kept playing it, and put it down on paper, revising and changing (not much) as I wrote. This took about 30 minutes, I had it so I played it a few more times and then recorded it and posted it here. I put it on a CD, looping so we could keep pantomiming without a break. The scene was cut but I have a new piece in my portfolio; time well spent imo. I rather like this piece, still, a week later...