This piece is one in a series of works for trumpet ensemble conceived and composed in the last year or so. With less in-person musical collaboration going on, I decided to write some works for me, myself, and I. The results vary widely but all center on the same question:

What can you do with multiple trumpets that you can't do with one?

Some answers are obvious: play chords, for example. This piece employs chords at points but is more concerned with another, perhaps less obvious answer (at least for non-trumpeters): complex lines with large leaps and little time to breathe. Some instruments can do this with relative ease—trumpet is certainly not one of them.

Where one trumpet simply cannot perform this material, four trumpets in a hocketing pattern can do the job—hence the title "Hyper-Hocket." While this was the initial idea for the piece, I'd like to think that the music took on a life of its own at some point and became more than an experiment in trumpet texture. Listen for yourself to find out.

Enjoy!

Trumpets 1-4: Me

Mixing/Mastering: Rain Johannes (IG: @rainjohannes)

Hyper-Hocket — for trumpet quartet (2021)

This piece is dedicated to my late grandfather, Wilfredo Acevedo, Sr., who was called home by the Lord this past winter. Grandpa was a godly man who gladly assumed sacrificial responsibility for all of his family, including me, as well as countless friends. He leaves behind a wife, four children, eleven grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.

The title "Already But Not Yet" is a phrase commonly used by Christian theologians to illustrate the current state of our world. We "already" live in the midst of the kingdom of heaven and, if we are Christians, with the gift of redemption and eternal life. But, at the same time, the world is "not yet" fully free of sin and death. That is, we still face such difficult providences as war, famine, natural disaster, and disease. This "living in the tension," as it's often called, is what I aim to evoke in this piece through a reflection on my grandfather's death.

Already But Not Yet — for trumpet and live electronics (2022)

This track was recorded by Colin Marston, January to May 2011, at Menegroth the Thousand Caves and features Adam Minkoff on standard guitar, Charlie Looker on baritone guitar, David Andrew Moore on drumset, and Tim Byrnes on vocals, synths, and horns.  'Behold, A Firewall" was premiered at The Stone in New York City on February 19th, 2010 by the same musicians as recorded it.  To purchase, please visit http://africantapegroup.bandcamp.com/album/the-africantape-ep .

Behold, A Firewall

“At Peace” is dedicated to the radical bass virtuoso, educator, and  civil rights activist Richard Davis, who always challenged the  boundaries of what was possible and where he belonged, both  musically and socially.  While improvisational based music is certainly more and more accepted in concert music settings now, it is still often considered as "the other", as opposed to thru composed classical music or song based musics.  As a lifelong student and practitioner of a few disparate musical traditions, I often find the separation between different musics that I love disappointing and frustrating.   Why can’t Arnold Schoenberg’s music be heard in concert alongside Charles Mingus’?  Why must Franz Joseph Haydn remain segregated from freely improvised music or Noh theater?  Why can’t the high  lonesome sound of Bill Monroe stand next to the grandeur of Duke  Ellington within the same work?   

As someone who loves so much music, I often feel pressure to conform to the boundaries or trends of a given style or genre, and feel like I'm not “supposed” to express everything I hear, or everything I want to say, if “doesn’t belong”.  Obviously many of these genre or stylistic limitations are conscious hundred(s) years old ways to segregate groups and classes of people, but remain a part of how institutions view styles of music.  Crazy, I know!  But as someone who has so much love in their heart for so many different musical histories, I really don’t care to separate the things that I love, and whether I planned on it or not, that is what is at the center of “At Peace”, for improvising trumpet and string quartet, written for Nate Wooley & Daedalus Quartet.  

This piece marries my love of the entire history of improvised music with my love of the classical tradition, taking far too many influences from in and outside of those histories to clearly identify to creatr something unlike anything I’ve written before.  So that’s pretty cool if you ask me!  Does it  mean it’s good?  Heck no!  But, it does mean that I can take all these things that I love, that I’ve been told to keep separate all of my life, and smush them together in one piece of music that feels like me, and that’s  something that makes me happy.  The bass playing and music of Richard Davis is something that constantly inspires me to be more of myself, no matter what, and with “At Peace”, I feel just a little bit more like myself.  Enjoy!

Daedalus Quartet + Nate Wooley - At Peace (2024)

House In The Park

Some beats, originals, and covers--a gift from me to you this Christmas. Enjoy!
Produced by Ife Samms
"Winter Blues" Written by Ife Samms

Bonus Angels, We Have Heard...

Missing Absence (2016) for organ

Watch It

Hazel-Rah is an avant-rock outfit based in Brooklyn, NY.

Behold, A Firewall

Hazel-Rah

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