Jingle Bells Jazz Trumpet Quartet

Description

Jingle Bells Jazz Trumpet Quartet

by J. Pierpont

Arr. Eddie Lewis

A few years ago, I played a Christmas jazz gig with Will Kennedy (drummer for the Yellow Jackets) and Will asked each of us to contribute some jazz arrangements of Christmas tunes. The sketch for this Cherokee treatment of Jingle Bells began in preparation for that performance. I don’t remember why, but I never offered Jingle Bells as an idea for that concert. I kept the sketch and later performed it at a park concert with my educational group, The Blue Gnus.

And yes, you read that correctly, the chord progression for this arrangement is the chords for the famous jazz tune, Cherokee. The bridge “took some doing”… trying to force the melody of the verse into that down-step modulation made the arranging process very interesting. But it works!

When I was looking at trumpet Christmas arrangements to write and release for this year (2022), the idea of applying this Cherokee treatment to a trumpet quartet arrangement of Jingle Bells was very exciting. I love the more traditional stuff that I write. I enjoy the duets we’ve been publishing, and the trios are interesting to write and to listen to. But this Jingle Bells Jazz trumpet quartet arrangement brings two of our series into one piece.

We have a series of jazzy trumpet quartets that has become very popular. It includes a few arrangements but mostly original jazz compositions, including our crazy recent release, Alien Cyclops Pickles. Here’s a list of the pieces in our jazzy trumpet quartets series:

• Alien Cyclops Pickles
• Happy Camper
• Happy Dance of Praise
• Heaven by Duke Ellington (Sheet Music Plus Only)
• Joy of the Lord
• No Concession Blues
• Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder (Sheet Music Plus Only)
• Something’s Gonna Happen Cuz I Can Feel It
• Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael (Sheet Music Plus Only)
• This Is the Day (jazzy, but not swing)
• When the Joy of the Lord Kicks In (jazzy, but not swing)

We are adding pieces to this list on a steady basis.

The other series the jazz version of Jingle Bells is part of is our Trumpet Christmas series, but there are too many of these to list individually here.

Jingle Bells Jazz trumpet quartet is fun to learn and fun to play and I think you’re going to enjoy it.

Practice Recommendations

The most important thing to remember when practicing Jingle Bells Jazz trumpet quartet is to practice the technical sections slowly. Nothing in the arrangement is too difficult to learn, but there are some awkward fingerings to work out.

I strongly recommend performing this piece at a slower than marked tempo if it is necessary. Most of my compositions and arrangements should sound just as good at slower tempi as they do as marked. I would much rather hear a group really swing this arrangement at as slower tempo than to hear them try to play it at the written tempo and lose that swing feel.

Jingle Bells Jazz Trumpet Quartet Play-Along

We have a free trumpet play-along video in our You Play First Chair video series for Jingle Bells Jazz trumpet quartet. These trumpet play-along videos are educational tools meant to help trumpet students practice their sight reading and ensemble playing. But they also work very well for letting prospective customers take the piece for a proverbial test drive. Click on the following button to access the trumpet play along video for Jingle Bells Jazz:

Jingle Bells Jazz Trumpet Quartet Score Video

The following is a score video for Jingle Bells Jazz. We offer these score videos so you have an opportunity to see and hear the piece before you buy it. Here’s your chance to take a look inside and see how difficult the parts really are.