''All Set'', for jazz ensemble, is a 1957 composition for small

jazz band A jazz band (jazz ensemble or jazz combo) is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands vary in the quantity of its members and the style of jazz that they play but it is common to find a jazz band made up of a rhythm section and a ho ...

by the American composer

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music. Biography ...

History

''All Set'' was commissioned by the 1957

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

Creative Arts Festival, which in that year was a jazz festival. It was premiered there by the

Bill Evans William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, block chords, innovative chord voicings, a ...

Orchestra in a performance that was recorded and released on a

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

LP in 1963. The title is a play on words referring to the all-combinatorial twelve-tone series Babbitt used in composing the work. The published score is dedicated to

Gunther Schuller Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Biography and works Early years Schuller was born in Queens, New York City ...

Analysis

The composition is scored for alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, trumpet, trombone, contrabass, piano, vibraphone, and percussion (trap set: small and large tom-toms, snare drum, bass drum, hi-hat, three suspended cymbals). The lyrical, imagist tendencies of Babbitt's earlier vocal works are also evident in ''All Set'', which combines a twelve-tone pitch structure using an all-combinatorial set (hence the work's title) to what Babbitt calls "jazz-like properties ... the use of percussion, the Chicago jazz-like juxtapositions of solos and ensembles recalling certain characteristics of group improvisation". Through this fusion of the sounds and rhythms of the jazz ensemble with strict

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

, Babbitt demonstrates the flexibility of his procedures. The composition falls into three main sections, starting in bars 1, 169, and 270, and concludes with a coda of eighteen bars. Each of the three sections is announced by a prominent statement of the combinatorial pitch array used as the basis of the work, and each section is subdivided into two parts. As with most of Babbitt's music, pitches are organized according to an array, rather than to a single, referential twelve-tone row. In the opening eight measures, for example, four row forms occur simultaneously: It is entirely arbitrary which of the four lines of the array is to be regarded as the untransposed prime form (''P''₀). In this case, that designation is assigned to the line presented in the score by the trumpet and trombone, but another source chooses the third line, which is presented in the high register of the vibraphone and the left hand of the piano. Regardless of which row is used as a reference, all of the

hexachord In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six- note series, as exhibited in a scale ( hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial t ...

s are drawn from the (unordered) second-order all-combinatorial hexachord, type ,1,2,6,7,8 which is Babbitt's "source set" number 4. It was in this work, together with ''Partitions'' for piano, that Babbitt introduced his idea of time points as an analogue to the twelve chromatic

pitch class In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positio ...

es. There is no steady beat from either the trap set or bass (as might be expected in a jazz piece), so that the effect produced is one of persistent and rather nervous activity (consistent with the tonal material), with only occasional relief.

Recordings

* ''Outstanding Jazz Compositions of the 20th Century''. J. J. Johnson: ''Jazz Suite for Brass'';

John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American civil rights activist and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...

: ''Three Little Feelngs'';

Jimmy Giuffre James Peter Giuffre (, ; April 26, 1921 – April 24, 2008) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He is known for developing forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating f ...

: ''Pharaoh''; George Russell: ''All about Rosie'';

Teo Macero Attilio Joseph "Teo" Macero (October 30, 1925 – February 19, 2008) was an American jazz record producer, saxophonist, and composer. He was a producer at Columbia Records for twenty years. Macero produced Miles Davis' ''Bitches Brew'' and Dave B ...

: ''Sounds of May''; Bob Prince: ''Avakianas Brasileiras'';

Teddy Charles Teddy Charles, born Theodore Charles Cohen (April 13, 1928 – April 16, 2012) was an American jazz musician and composer, whose instruments were the vibraphone, piano, and drums. Career Born Theodore Charles Cohen in Chicopee Falls, Mas ...

: ''Swinging Goatsherd Blues'';

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz Double bass, upright bassist, composer, bandleader, pianist, and author. A major proponent of collective Musical improvisation, improvisation, he is considered one of ...

: ''Revelations'' (first movement); Jimmy Giuffre: ''Suspensions'';

Harold Shapero Harold Samuel Shapero (April 29, 1920 – May 17, 2013) was an American composer. Early years Shapero was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1920. He and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a ch ...

: ''On Green Mountain: Chaconne after Monteverdi'';

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D ...

: ''Idiom '59''; Milton Babbitt: ''All Set'';

: ''Transformation''. Performed by various ensembles. abbitt performed by Bill Evans and orchestra Recorded 1955–1959. LP recording, 2 discs: 33 1/3 rpm, electronically re-channeled for stereo, 12 in. Columbia C25 831 (CS 8909, CS 8910). New York: Columbia Records, 1963. Reissued on ''Bill Evans and Orchestra''. George Russell: All about Rosie: part I & part II; Jimmy Giuffre: ''Suspensions''; Gunther Schuller: ''Transformation''; Harold Shapero: ''On Green Mountain''; Milton Babbitt: ''All Set''; Charles Mingus: ''Revelations'';

Howard Dietz Howard Dietz (September 8, 1896 – July 30, 1983) was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist, best remembered for his songwriting collaboration with Arthur Schwartz. According to historian Stanley Green, Dietz and Schwartz were "most cl ...

and

Arthur Schwartz Arthur Schwartz (November 25, 1900 – September 3, 1984) was an American composer and film producer, widely noted for his songwriting collaborations with Howard Dietz. Biography Early life Schwartz was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New ...

: " Dancing in the Dark";

Cole Porter Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became Standard (music), standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway the ...

: "I Love You";

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular music, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swan ...

: "'Swonderful". Recorded at the Brandeis Jazz Festival, New York City, 1957, and the Newport Jazz Festival, 1957. Compact disc, 1 sound disc: digital; 4¾ in. Gambit Records 69214; .l. Gambit Records, 2005. * ''Spectrum New American Music'', volume 5. Milton Babbitt: ''All Set''; T. J. Anderson: ''Variations on a Theme by M. B. Tolson''; Richard Wernick: ''Kaddish-Requiem''. Contemporary Chamber Ensemble; Arthur Weisberg, conductor. LP recording, 1 disc: 33⅓ rpm, stereo, 12 in. Nonesuch H-71303. New York: Elektra Nonesuch, 1974. Reissued on CD, ''Spectrum New American Music'', coupled with

Stefan Wolpe Stefan Wolpe (25 August 1902, Berlin – 4 April 1972, New York City) was a German-born American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz mov ...

: Quartet for trumpet, tenor saxophone, percussion, piano; Seymour Shifrin: ''Satires of Circumstance'';

George Rochberg George Rochberg (July 5, 1918May 29, 2005) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Long a serialism, serial composer, Rochberg abandoned the technique after his teenage son died in 1964, saying it had proved inadequate to expres ...

: ''Serenata d'estate''; Richard Wernick: ''Kaddish-Requiem''. Elektra Nonesuch 9 79222-2. New York: Elektra Nonesuch, 1990. * ''Milton Babbitt: All Set''. ''Composition for Twelve Instruments''; ''All Set''; ''Correspondences''; ''Paraphrases''; ''The Crowded Air''; ''From the Psalter''.

Boston Modern Orchestra Project The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra founded in 1996 by artistic director Gil Rose in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. In its first twelve seasons, the BMOP was able to perform over 80 concerts of conte ...

; Gil Rose, conductor. BMOP/sound 1034. Malden, MA: BMOP/sound, 2013.

Listening

All Set, for Jazz Ensemble
on the Slowly Expanding Milton Babbitt Album(since 2018), produced by Erik Carlson

References

Sources * * * * * * * * *

External links