White Christmas (arr. John La Barbera) by Bing Crosby Sheet Music for Jazz Ensemble at Sheet Music Direct

Product Details

Title White Christmas (arr. John La Barbera)

Artist Bing Crosby

Score Type

PDF, Included with PASS

Composer Irving Berlin

Arranger John La Barbera

Format Digital Sheet Music

Pages 46

Arrangement Jazz Ensemble

Publisher Deaver Enterprises ASCAP

Level 3

Product ID 1236716

Genre Christmas Jazz Festival Contest Film/TV Standards

Performance Group Jazz Ensemble

Product Description

Newly edited & corrected from my original score:

Score & Parts Formatted 8.5 X 11

White Christmas
Irving Berlin Arr. John La Barber
As Recorded By the Glenn Miller Orchestra on the
"In The Christmas Mood" Recordings

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Glenn Miller Orchestra (GMO) sound, Id like to give a brief description of it from an arranging point of view.

Basically, the sound or orchestration most identified with the GMO is the melody played by a clarinet and harmonized with 2 alto saxes and 2 tenor saxes.

The standard instrumentation of a jazz big band sax section is generally 2 altos, 2 tenors and a baritone sax.
Most professional big band sax section instrumentation is augmented with each player doubling (playing a different instrument) on other woodwind instruments
i.e. clarinet, flute, oboe, bass clarinet and more.

Glenns sound required such doubling in that the 1st alto sax player switched to clarinet and the baritone sax player switched to alto sax to accommodate the sound instrumentation.
Youll see in the score how this affects the score order when the sound was used in an arrangement.

Reed 1 (or alto 1) is the normal alto sax but switching to clarinet
Reed 2 is the normal alto sax
Reed 3 is the normal tenor 1
Reed 4 is the normal tenor 2
Reed 5 is the baritone switching to alto sax.

In this arrangement you can see different doublings in the introduction then settling on the above instrumentation at measure 7.
Please keep in mind that this sound was not used all the time but generally in medium & slow tempo songs, depending on the arranger.
The rest of the time, standard sax instrumentation was used.

Bill Finnegan is my favorite arranger who contributed countless scores to the GMO and Ive tried to emulate him in this adaptation. This arrangement swings no matter what the tempo and is a real crowd pleaser from concert to contest.

Additional Scores formatted 11 X 17 & 8.5 X 14 Are Availabe In A Separate Category
(Ensemble: Score Only (reference score without parts for Orchestra, Band, Ensemble)

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