In 2003, when I moved to Indianapolis, I immediately started looking to put together a band - but not just any band... I had long ago grown tired of the now ubiquitous guitar, bass, drums, and maybe keyboard pop/rock/country ensemble. For one thing, as the lead singer, lead guitarist and keyboardist for the last few bands I had assembled, I was just tired of lugging all that heavy equipment around.
For another, I had discovered that I could arrange pretty much any song I know for mandolin and come up with something pretty cool - especially with the addition of a melody instrument. I was inspired by Yo Yo Ma's comments about his Silk Road Journeys album and had in mind a 16th Century rock band...
So I went looking for a cellist or a bassoonist. I advertised on Indianapolis Music Net and some guy with the handle "Noiseman433" made the mistake of responding, "I used to play cello a long time ago". And that was it - no one else. Not a peep. So I e-mailed him. And then a few times more before he responded - totally non-committal.
I was also interviewing female singers at the time and one of them said about the Noiseman, "I don't know much about him, but from what I read and what other people say, he's a pretty serious guy."
Then Noiseman made the further mistake of sending me his name and phone number. From that point on I flat-out cyber-stalked him. I e-mailed him three or four times a week - getting maybe one reply for my efforts. I hunted down his articles and read them voraciously. I called him at least once a week - usually only getting his voice-mail. This went on for more than three months.
During this time I actually interviewed a couple of bassoonists, but neither was enthused about the project. Of course, neither was the Noiseman - well - Jon. Then I mentioned in an e-mail that I was getting a divorce. Jon had been through one and called me to offer his condolences - and by the end of the phone call agreed to have me come over and show him a few scores.
Jon had not read a score for a cello in nearly 8 years and the first time he saw my arrangements, his first comment was, "what are all these little black dots for?" The process was further hampered by my relative musical illiteracy - but we were able nonetheless to quickly put together several hours of good music with only 3 rehearsals and were soon off on our first gig.
And thus was born il Troubadore - Indy's 16th Century Rock Band.
rbs
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We'll keep our Misirlou and Erev Shel Shoshanim pretty much as they are since they seem to be very good and strong arrangements.
We'd probably want to include at least one more Rom piece--likely in a chiftetelli as nothing on this list is in that rhythm.
Please feel free to list your suggestions in the comments as we'd like to hear from you and get some feedback!