Peter Erskine Unreleased Audio + Print Music
Here it is: the remix of the Closing Credits music for the classic anime series “Gunsmith Cats,” featuring a Who’s Who of New York and Los Angeles studio musicians. Composed by Peter Erskine and arranged by Vince Mendoza, remixed by Aaron Walk and downloadable as a 44.1K/16bit .wav file.
Finally … the remix of the powerhouse opening to the legendary anime series “Gunsmith Cats,” featuring a Who’s Who of New York and LA studio musicians. 44.1K/16bit .wav file
December 10, 1998. A date that will live in Lounge Art Finnish fan lore as the night Dave Carpenter, Bob Sheppard and Peter Erskine brought their American swing ethos to the frozen jazz hinterland otherwise known as the newly-opened Doo-Bop Club in Vaasa, Finland. I remember two things about that gig: that it was fun, and that it was cold. It was also captured by the YLE radio station and preserved on DA-88 tapes. Discovering these in the usual unmarked cardboard box in storage, I had their contents transferred to .wav files by the archival experts at Warner Brothers in Burbank (this involved some “baking” of the tape material) and then setting engineer Aaron Walk loose to remix it to his heart’s content.
We have an album! 7 tunes from the First Set, and 7 tunes from the Second Set. Featuring the late / great Dave Carpenter on acoustic and 6-string electric bass. His simultaneous walking and chordal comping is out of this world, as is his soloing on these recordings. Bob Sheppard swings, and I manage to get a few good licks in now and then. Of special note are the w tunes on the First Set where I’m playing the Club Jordan cocktail kit. Holy Cow.
90 second previews appear below. (Please click the >> button on the player to advance from preview-track to preview-track!)
7 tunes for $2.50 … you can’t beat that deal with a stick.
December 10, 1998. A date that will live in Lounge Art Finnish fan lore as the night Dave Carpenter, Bob Sheppard and Peter Erskine brought their American swing ethos to the frozen jazz hinterland otherwise known as the newly-opened Doo-Bop Club in Vaasa, Finland. I remember two things about that gig: that it was fun, and that it was cold. It was also captured by the YLE radio station and preserved on DA-88 tapes. Discovering these in the usual unmarked cardboard box in storage, I had their contents transferred to .wav files by the archival experts at Warner Brothers in Burbank (this involved some “baking” of the tape material) and then setting engineer Aaron Walk loose to remix it to his heart’s content.
We have an album! 7 tunes from the First Set, and 7 tunes from the Second Set. Featuring the late / great Dave Carpenter on acoustic and 6-string electric bass. His simultaneous walking and chordal comping is out of this world, as is his soloing on these recordings. Bob Sheppard swings, and I manage to get a few good licks in now and then. Of special note are the tunes on the First Set where I’m playing the Club Jordan cocktail kit. Holy Cow.
90 second previews appear in the player below. Use the next/previous >> buttons to hear previews of each track.
7 tunes for $2.50 … you can’t beat that deal with a stick.
Jazz On 3 for BBC Radio 3 commissioned me to compose a suite of music “for brass and percussion” in late 2000. I set to work and came up with 11 pieces for brass (3 trumpets, 3 French horns, trombone, tuba), rhythm section, percussion plus one woodwind soloist. The premiere date was May 25, 2001, and the ensemble was conducted by Mike Gibbs. Soloists included Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Michael Formanek and Marty Ehrlich! The master multitrack tapes were discovered recently, and I had all of the music remixed and mastered to my total satisfaction by Aaron Walk!
The players are: John Barclay (1st Trpt.), Richard Iles (2nd Trpt.), Kenny Wheeler (solo trumpet & flugelhorn); Pip Eastop , Richard Berry & Martin Owen, French horns; Liam Kirkman, trb; Owen Slade, tuba; Colin Currie, percussion; John Taylor, piano; Michael Formanek, bass; Peter Erskine, drums; and Marty Ehrlich, reeds.
The great British brass band tradition of excellence shines, as does the improvisatory genius of Kenny, JT, Marty and Michael.
The music is available by individual song file, or as a suite. An added bonus is a trio improvisation of Marty, Michael & myself (“Relativity”). Download the entire concert for $7.99.
Also available are the scores and parts for each of the 11 movements of “Music for Brass & Percussion.”
Many thanks to all of the musicians, and the following:
Peter Erskine
Jazz On 3 for BBC Radio 3 commissioned me to compose a suite of music “for brass and percussion” in late 2000. I set to work and came up with 11 pieces for brass (3 trumpets, 3 French horns, trombone, tuba), rhythm section, percussion plus one woodwind soloist. The premiere date was May 25, 2001, and the ensemble was conducted by Mike Gibbs. Soloists included Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Michael Formanek and Marty Ehrlich! The master multitrack tapes were discovered recently, and I had all of the music remixed and mastered to my total satisfaction by Aaron Walk!
The players are: John Barclay (1st Trpt.), Richard Iles (2nd Trpt.), Kenny Wheeler (solo trumpet & flugelhorn); Pip Eastop , Richard Berry & Martin Owen, French horns; Liam Kirkman, trb; Owen Slade, tuba; Colin Currie, percussion; John Taylor, piano; Michael Formanek, bass; Peter Erskine, drums; and Marty Ehrlich, reeds.
The great British brass band tradition of excellence shines, as does the improvisatory genius of Kenny, JT, Marty and Michael.
The music is available by individual song file, or as a suite. An added bonus is a trio improvisation of Marty, Michael & myself (“Relativity”). Download the entire concert for $7.99.
Also available are the scores and parts for each of the 11 movements of “Music for Brass & Percussion.”
Many thanks to all of the musicians, and the following:
… and dig the beautiful trumpet playing of John Barclay on this!
Peter Erskine
“When You Are Old” is dedicated to The Hilliard Ensemble, for whom I first wrote the piece at a workshop in Germany. The piece gets its title from the poem by Yeats.
a 90-second audio preview appears below…
Jazz On 3 for BBC Radio 3 commissioned me to compose a suite of music “for brass and percussion” in late 2000. I set to work and came up with 11 pieces for brass (3 trumpets, 3 French horns, trombone, tuba), rhythm section, percussion plus one woodwind soloist. The premiere date was May 25, 2001, and the ensemble was conducted by Mike Gibbs. Soloists included Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Michael Formanek and Marty Ehrlich! The master multitrack tapes were discovered recently, and I had all of the music remixed and mastered to my total satisfaction by Aaron Walk!
The players are: John Barclay (1st Trpt.), Richard Iles (2nd Trpt.), Kenny Wheeler (solo trumpet & flugelhorn); Pip Eastop , Richard Berry & Martin Owen, French horns; Liam Kirkman, trb; Owen Slade, tuba; Colin Currie, percussion; John Taylor, piano; Michael Formanek, bass; Peter Erskine, drums; and Marty Ehrlich, reeds.
The great British brass band tradition of excellence shines, as does the improvisatory genius of Kenny, JT, Marty and Michael.
The music is available by individual song file, or as a suite. An added bonus is a trio improvisation of Marty, Michael & myself (“Relativity”). Download the entire concert for $7.99.
Also available are the scores and parts for each of the 11 movements of “Music for Brass & Percussion.”
Many thanks to all of the musicians, and the following:
Peter Erskine
“Romeo & Juliet” is dedicated to my children Taichi and Maya … I originally wrote the hymn for their school production of the Shakespeare play. A choral version exists with lyrics by Anne Hills.
No bloopers here, folks! Just some incredible playing by New York’s finest, culled from the master digital reel-to-reel tape that was recently discovered and transferred to ProTools for this collection (and pretty much the reason I decided to launch this Downloads page). Special pricing for this bundle is $1.99, so you get 1 track for free!
ALTERNATE SAX SOLO TAKE OF “HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES”
(audio sample here portion of solo; download track = complete tune with 1st take Michael Brecker solo!)
The album “Motion Poet” has remained one of my favorite recording projects of all time … and it’s a favorite of many fans and listeners as well. With a cast of players like Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Bob Mintzer, John Abercrombie, Marc Johnson, Eliane Elias, Jim Beard, Will Lee, Jeff Mironov, and Lew Soloff leading an incredible horn section, arranged by Vince Mendoza and produced by Don Grolnick, this album was nothing less than “noble,” to quote one of the French horn players on the date. As incredible as it was to record all of that music in so short a time, there was time enough indeed for alternate takes to be tracked … music that’s never seen the light of day until now.
Thanks to an archivist engineer’s skills, we were able to pull the performances off a digital multitrack reel-to-reel tape and create ProTools files, where the music was listened to remixed. What a treasure trove of playing we found! (Musical / technical note: we have used the earlier/alternate rhythm section & solo take while incorporating the overdubbed horn sections.)
If you’re a fan of the album, you need to hear these takes. If you’re a Mike Brecker fan (and who isn’t?), you need to hear these takes. And, if you’re a fan of my drumming, well there’s a lot of very cool and very dummy things going on in these alternate takes of several tunes, including “A New Regalia,” “Erskoman,” “Not A Word” plus an off-the-charts Brecker first take reading on “Hero With A Thousand Faces” (we also include a partial take / alternate rhythm track that’s quite fascinating to listen to).
16 bit 44.1k WAV files.
Here are some photos from the album’s recording sessions …
ALTERNATE TAKE OF “A NEW REGALIA”
(audio sample here just a portion of the track; downloaded version = complete alternate rhythm take with horn overdubs!)
The album “Motion Poet” has remained one of my favorite recording projects of all time … and it’s a favorite of many fans and listeners as well. With a cast of players like Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Bob Mintzer, John Abercrombie, Marc Johnson, Eliane Elias, Jim Beard, Will Lee, Jeff Mironov, and Lew Soloff leading an incredible horn section, arranged by Vince Mendoza and produced by Don Grolnick, this album was nothing less than “noble,” to quote one of the French horn players on the date. As incredible as it was to record all of that music in so short a time, there was time enough indeed for alternate takes to be tracked … music that’s never seen the light of day until now.
Thanks to an archivist engineer’s skills, we were able to pull the performances off a digital multitrack reel-to-reel tape and create ProTools files, where the music was listened to remixed. What a treasure trove of playing we found! (Musical / technical note: we have used the earlier/alternate rhythm section & solo take while incorporating the overdubbed horn sections.)
If you’re a fan of the album, you need to hear these takes. If you’re a Mike Brecker fan (and who isn’t?), you need to hear these takes. And, if you’re a fan of my drumming, well there’s a lot of very cool and very dummy things going on in these alternate takes of several tunes, including “A New Regalia,” “Erskoman,” “Not A Word” plus an off-the-charts Brecker first take reading on “Hero With A Thousand Faces” (we also include a partial take / alternate rhythm track that’s quite fascinating to listen to).
16 bit 44.1k WAV files.
Here are some photos from the album’s recording sessions …
