Quartet for Solo Group and Big Band

During a musical career that lasted over seven decades, bassist, composer, arranger and jazz orchestra leader Miljenko Prohaska (Zagreb, September 17, 1925 – Zagreb, May 29, 2014) left a remarkable trace on Croatian music. His vast oeuvre, which extends from jazz to pop, a large number of music-drama works, film scores, works for wind, jazz, review and tamburitza orchestras, as well as chamber music, will remain a thing of value in the Croatian musical heritage and a challenge to all who in the years and decades to come are going to attempt to register and systematise it. An important part of his body of work is related to third stream music. It was in this style that he wrote compositions performed by combos and orchestras abroad. In fact, Prohaska is the only Croatian composer for jazz orchestra some of whose compositions and arrangements have become a part of the standard world repertoire. His name, then was mentioned in the same breath as those of world music greats. He worked and was friends with numerous famous jazz artists such as John Lewis, Johnny Griffin, Art Farmer, Michel Legrand, Art Taylor, Slide Hampton, and played in the international orchestras of Gerry Mulligan and Clark Terry. His Intima is the most-played jazz composition by any Croatian writer and the only Croatian jazz number to have found a place among world jazz standards, played and recorded by numerous well-regarded musicians in America and elsewhere. The original words for the composition were penned by legendary jazz journalist, writer and encyclopaedist Leonard Feather. Miljenko Prohaska finished composing the Quartet for solo group and big band in Zagreb on February the 22nd 1997. The composition was written for a solo group (flugelhorn, alto sax, tenor sax and euphonium) probably for a precisely determined set of musicians whom Prohaska had in mind since this is not a combination of instruments that is very often found in jazz for the solo group. The blending of the solo group instruments results in a very particular and characteristic sound and sound colour. The solo group functions as a separate element and is as a unit juxtaposed to the big band: it works as a single section with its own identity; we might characterise the composition as some kind of concertino in which the solo group vies with the tutti group. The composition is written in quick tempo: in places the composer marks the rhythmic flow as straight quavers but in the phrasing the stylistic influence of swing can be felt, In view of the rapid tempo the swing quavers are played really straight, with emphasis and particular articulations. The rhythm section plays constantly throughout the whole of the composition which is the main characteristic of jazz. Syncopation and swing rhythms are frequent, but the composer did not write down any marking for swing quavers. The rhythm section generally delivers a rapid swing rhythmical flow but in some places switches over to a rhythmic flow of straight quavers which reflects the stylistic influence of funk music. The orchestration of the Quartet is distinctly determined by very clear sectional writing (saxophone section, trumpets, trombones, brass); the composer uses the horns as a separate section but also as a part of the brass section. The tuba is used as a part of the trombone and brass section, the tuba is combined with the double bass and the part that is played in the left hand of the piano (often unisono.) Prohaska uses the flute, piccolo, oboe and clarinets as a whole as solo instruments, since in terms of volume they are quite quiet and in this relatively loud environment in this way they will come to the fore much better. For the solo group Prohaska envisages one more type of improvisation, that is, the collective type in which the soloists are all equal to each other and with their improvisations carefully accompany the other soloists in their improvisations. Because of the position of this collective improvisation it might be said that it is there for the purpose of heightening the energy up to the culmination before the final coda which is a frequent use of collective improvisation in writing for jazz orchestra. The big form of the composition could be characterised as a standard form of jazz arrangement for big band (introduction, theme, solo section, tutti, recapitulation of the theme and coda).