Bob Graettinger Scores

Musician/historian Terry Vosbein writes to remind me to give him due credit for this amazing BG tribute, and add the link to his All Things Kenton site, where I hit a netiquette sour note when I  copped his chart note-for-note. Mea Culpa. Kindly visit Terry's most excellent site at:


http://www.vosbein.com/kenton/lagniappe/graettinger/

Graphs and Charts of Bob Graettinger

The Kenton Archives at the University of North Texas contain hundreds of handwritten and colored pages created by Bob Graettinger. Pitch names, colors, lines, dots and squiggles were all part of his pre-compositional process. Some are very tiny, on small scraps of paper. Others are quite large. Fronts and backs of pages are frequently both used. There are short handwritten notes to himself. A small sampling is presented below.

There are no notations associating any of this with particular compositions. Graettinger used these charts to plan his compositions, in a system known only to him. He then made very meticulous scores using traditional musical notation. It was these scores that were sent to Clinton Roemer, Kenton's primary copyist, who would create the individual musicians' parts.

Click on an image for a larger view.

A rare 1946 straight-ahead swing-era composition by Progressive Jazz's bad boy of the avant garde, Bob Graettinger. Performed by Terry Vosbein and the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra.