This catchy little piece came about as an assignment for Herb Harrison's "big band" arranging class at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), originally in 1972; I expanded the very end in 2022, but everything else is original.

It was just "Sac State," back then, but Herb was a gifted arranger and composer. He had played in big clubs in San Francisco (winds) and had studied with French composer Darius Milhaud, who taught at Mills College, in the Bay Area. Milhaud had been a close friend of Erik Satie, so one could easily posit that I shook the hand that shook the hand that was a major part of French music history.

Herb's approach was simple and proved highly valuable to me. He divided his lesson plans around the sections in a typical "big band" or "jazz band" ensemble. First, we learned about the instruments in each section, learning their playable ranges, their characteristics, and their unique challenges to the musicians, and then we wrote for them, starting with the rhythm section.

Unlike my classmates, I did not care to be cool or write something to just please the musicians; I wrote to challenge the musicians to gain an understanding about their abilities and the peculiarities of their instruments, and to hear how they would sound in sundry combinations.

This, then, was the progenesis of "Batch of Sax." The piece is based on a simple phrase and counter-phrase that repeat throughout. BUT, each time, the saxophones played in many different configurations: two altos together, then two tenors, then alto plus tenor, then all four but each taking a turn on the top melodic part of the chords, etc.

With each lesson completed, Herb had the band play and record our efforts. To hear one's efforts performed live is an invaluable gift to every composer. When it came my turn, Herb was genuinely pleased and intrigued. He said of this and at least one other piece, "This is 'almost' there..." with a smile of approval.

The original version was for violin, but after a while I felt the sonorous depth of the viola more closely matched the character of the piece. I made the violin part available for download.

The viola, in my opinion, is a too often overlooked choice for solo instrument and expressiveness.

Performance time: approximately 2’20"

Vanessa McClintock