Download Album Cover*

Best of Friends

Andy Malloy trombone
Junko Ueno Garrett piano

Release Date: September 23, 2022
Catalog #: NV6470
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Solo Instrumental
Piano
Trombone

Navona Records and trombonist Andy Malloy present BEST OF FRIENDS, a collection of personalized pieces for trombone and piano. Featuring works that Malloy commissioned from his colleagues over the years, the album is truly an ode to the relationships formed through musical collaboration. Each piece on the album pushes the musical boundaries to which the trombone is often held through creative uses of tonality and soaring melodies. Rhythmically energetic passages, jazz harmonies, and more speak throughout the album, highlighting the musicianship of Malloy and the compositional dexterity of his colleagues, a musical testament to the power of collaboration.

Listen

Hear a preview of the album

Stream/Buy

Choose your platform

Buy Album: Amazon (digital download) Qobuz (24-bit download)

Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Fantasy Jack Hayes Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 7:17
02 Sonata For Trombone And Piano: I. Maestoso John Stevens Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 5:32
03 Sonata For Trombone And Piano: II. Very Slowly And Freely John Stevens Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 5:49
04 Sonata For Trombone And Piano: III. Allegro Energico John Stevens Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 4:42
05 Dozeandeeze Jim Self Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 6:10
06 Sonata For Trombone And Piano: I. Allegro Stanley Friedman Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 6:26
07 Sonata For Trombone And Piano: II. Chaconne Stanley Friedman Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 5:34
08 Sonata For Trombone And Piano: III. Rondo Stanley Friedman Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 5:27
09 Fantasy N. Lincoln Hanks Andrew Malloy, trombone; Junko Ueno Garrett, piano 9:26
10 Preludio E Fuga IV: Preludio Johann Sebastian Bach; arr. Robert Marsteller Andrew Malloy, trombone 2:43
11 Preludio E Fuga IV: Fuga Johann Sebastian Bach; arr. Robert Marsteller Andrew Malloy, trombone 3:54

Tracks 1 and 5
Recorded October 25, 2004 at Daniel Recital Hall, California State University in Long Beach CA
Recording, Editing, and Mastering Sonny Ausman
Tonmeister Doug Tornquist

Tracks 2-4, 6-8, 9
Recorded June 23-24, 2004 at Recital Hall, California State University in Northridge CA
Recording, Editing, and Mastering Sonny Ausman
Tonmeisters Rob Frear, Al Veeh

Tracks 10-11
Recorded June 10, June 13, and June 21, 2004 at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in North Hollywood CA
Recording, Editing, and Mastering Sonny Ausman
Tonmeister Ken Kugler

Music preparation for tracks 1, 10, 11 by Marty Fenton Frear
Payroll Sabron

Recording Equipment
Microphones: 2 Coles 4038,
Recorder: ibook/Protools,
Speakers: Fulton custom,
Amplifier: Naim 40

Instruments
Conn 62H, Minick L mouthpiece,
Shires symphony tenor,
Greg Black 4G/5G mouthpiece

Acknowledgements
Thank you to Rick Baptist, Bill Booth, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Council, Guy Fabres, Marty
McCambridge, Mary Reale, Ralph Sauer, Kris Solem, Al Veeh, and Gary Wasserman.

Executive Producer Bob Lord

A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Quinton Blue

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
Mastering Melanie Montgomery

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming, Morgan Hauber
Publicity Patrick Niland, Aidan Curran

Artist Information

Andy Malloy

Trombonist

Andrew Malloy, a New Hampshire native, attended the University of Massachusetts graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Music Education degree. He continued his education at The Juilliard School where he received a Master of Music in Performance. He lived in Los Angeles where he worked as an active freelance musician for 40 years. As a studio player he recorded hundreds of film scores as well as TV shows and commercials. He performed as a regular member of the Pasadena, Santa Barbara, and New West Symphonies and The Crown City Brass Quintet.

Learn More
Junko Ueno Garrett

Junko-Ueno-Garrett

Piano

Japan-born Junko Ueno Garrett has captivated audiences around the world with her colorful tone, poetry, expressiveness, dynamic technique, and wide range of repertoire. She began playing piano at the age of three, trained at the prestigious Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo studying under Professor Hiroshi Miura, and received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music studying under Professor John Perry in the United States. Garrett received “The Japanese Consul General’s Award” for her contributions to international relations and understanding between countries. She was chosen to tour to celebrate 150 years of the United States-Japan relationship and 125 years of the Brazil-Japan relationship.

During the 2020-21 season, Garrett performed many live streamed concerts, and she is happy to be back in person performing. In August 2021, she performed a solo concert for Fêtes Corréziennes En Musique in France, and received a wonderful review on La Montagne. As an artistic director and founder, she coordinates and performs concerts at the Third@First concert series in Los Angeles. In the 2021-22 season, she performed a “Reopening Celebration Concert” in October, “Joy of Chamber Music,” and “Chamber Music Encore” concerts with Los Angeles Philharmonic friends in November and January, performing Franck and Dohnanyi Piano Quintets and Haydn’s Trio, Piano Concert: Stories in Music in March, Haydn: Sonata in E flat Major, Brahms: Op. 117, and Schumann’s Kreisleriana. Her mission is to bring young musicians and community groups to the Third@First, and this season, MTNA/CAPMT competition winners will be performing in February. She frequently performs for Music at Noon in Pasadena, and KOT Concert in Santa Monica. She will be in France in July for L’Académie Internationale de Musique de Paris, performing and teaching, and will be in Tokyo in the fall of 2022 (postponed twice due to the pandemic) for a concert at Kawai “Pause” Salon Hall.

She launched a weekly piano lesson video in Japanese on Youtube in July, 2020, and she has gained many viewers and subscribers. She continues producing a new video weekly and enjoys connecting with piano lovers in the Japanese speaking community. Garrett enjoys sharing blogs and photos from her webpage www.junkopiano.com.

Under the culture exchange program of the Japan Foundation, Japanese Embassies, and Consulate Generals of Japan, she has toured South and Central America in 2018, 2015, 2010, 2008, 2006, 2002, and 1999, including Brazil (Mozart Concerto No. 23 with Orquestra de EMBAP), Venezuela (Saint-Saens Concerto No. 2 with Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela under Alfredo Rugeles), Ecuador (Chopin Concerto No. 2 with Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Ecuador under Medardo Caisabanda), Colombia’s Teatro Colón and Boyacá International Cultural Festival, Rio de Janeiro’s Música no Museu at Mosteiro de São Bento, Brazil-Curitiba’s Capela Santa Maria, Argentina’s Teatro Gran Rex, Brasilia’s Teatro da Caixa, Peru’s Sociedad Filarmónica, Uruguay’s Auditorio Carlos Vaz Ferreira and Teatro Miguel Young, Costa Rica’s Teatro Eugene O’Neill, El Salvador’s Teatros Nacionales des San Salvador and Santa Ana, Cuba’s Basilica Menor del Convento, Chile’s Centro Cultural Las Condes, and Mexico City. In 2018 and 2016 she toured the East Coast and Midwest of the United States under the Japan Foundation’s culture program.

Her other engagements include performances at: Radio France; French Festivals in Turenne, Chambre and Treignac; Le Chateau de Sedieres; Washington DC’s Kennedy Center; New York’s UN, Charles Wang Center and Flushing Town Hall; Boston’s Berklee College; San Francisco’s Japan Center; Kansas City’s Carlsen Center; Denver’s King Academic Performing Arts Center; Salt Lake City’s Libby Gardner Concert Hall; Tampa’s Carrollwood Cultural Center; Georgia’s Falany Performing Arts Center; Houston’s Texas Music Festival; Tucson; Indiana; Fairbanks; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Idaho Falls; and Shreveport. In the summers of 2009 and 2007, at the invitation of the U.S. State Department, Garrett toured in Japan as part of the Belrose Duo, performing and lecturing on American music in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, Okinawa, Sapporo, Tottori, and Fukuoka. Other activities include concert tours to India introducing Western Music to Indian audiences. She often gives masterclasses where she performs, and gives recitals at universities.

She is a president of Pasadena Chapter of Music Teachers National Association and a frequent adjudicator for MTNA, CAPMT, MTAC, Southern California Junior Bach Festival, and Southwestern Youth Music Festival. She is a program coordinator of the Third@First Concert Series in Los Angeles. Garrett holds a faculty position at Occidental College, and is a chamber music coach for Junior Chamber Music. She is a Kawai artist and lives in Los Angeles. Garrett is a passionate Sumo advocate and a founder of the Los Angeles Sumo Fan Club.

Jack Hayes

Jack Hayes

Composer

Jack Hayes (1919-2011), a noted composer and arranger, studied with Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco, Alfred Sendrey, and Ernst Krenek. His composing career started in Hollywood after a five year stint in the Army during World War II playing and writing for the 362nd Army Band. He orchestrated for such legendary names as Alfred Newman, Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, Marvin Hamlisch, John Morris, and Quincy Jones.

His film credits include classics such as Farewell to Arms, The Magnificent Seven, Casino Royale, Camelot, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, To Kill A Mockingbird, How The West Was Won, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Natural, Ragtime, Ironweed, Elephant Man, and Little Nikita. He also arranged the 17 hour television drama Winds of War.

Hayes was nominated for Oscars twice by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for compositions on The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1964 and The Color Purple in 1985.

Stanley Friedman

Stanley Friedman

Composer

Stanley Friedman’s music has been premiered by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, l’Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society, the Memphis Symphony, the Northwestern University Orchestra and by major soloists in festivals around the world. His opera HYPATIA (premiered in concert at the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts) earned praise as orchestrally impressive and lyrically quite rich” [(NZ) Opera News]. The (NZ) Dominion identified Friedman as “…a significant new opera composer.”

Widely known for his music for brass, Friedman has received awards and commissions from the International Trumpet Guild, the International Horn Society, the International Trombone Association and many leading soloists and ensembles. His SOLUS for unaccompanied trumpet is a world success and has been designated required contemporary repertoire” for major international solo competitions. Friedman’s works are published by EDITIONS BIM (Switzerland), SUBITO MUSIC and ASHER ROSE MUSIC (USA), ANTES EDITION (Germany)and are recorded on multiple labels.

A YAMAHA TRUMPET ARTIST, Friedman has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and held principal positions with the New Zealand Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic. His solo CD The Lyric Trumpet (ODE #1327) won Best Classical Recording of 1989 honors at the New Zealand Music Awards and has been critically acclaimed in leading publications. Friedman has presented solo recitals and master-classes throughout the U.S. and abroad and often is called upon to conduct concerts and recordings of his music.

Born in 1951, Friedman earned a doctorate in composition at the Eastman School of Music. In addition to his composing, performing and conducting, Friedman has held faculty positions at universities around the world.

Jim Self

Jim Self

Composer, Tubist

Jim Self is a Los Angeles based freelance and studio musician, a veteran of thousands of motion pictures, television shows and records, and tuba soloist on many prominent movies. His tuba was the “Voice of the Mothership” in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Other solos can be heard in many of John Williams’s soundtracks including Home Alone I & II, Jurassic Park, James Horner’s Casper, Jerry Goldsmith’s Dennis the Menace, and Marc Shaiman’s Sleepless in Seattle. For many years he was first tuba for John Williams, James Horner, James Newton Howard, John Debney, and others.

Self has recorded with hundreds of artists including Placid Domingo, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, and Don Ellis. He is principal Tuba/Cimbasso with the Pacific and Pasadena Symphonies, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestras. He has recently worked on Star Wars VII,VIII and IX with Williams in the 2007-2008 season, Pacific Symphony commissioned him to write a feature work called Tour de Force. This 13-minute piece was premiered in April 2008 at the Symphony’s home, the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Hall in Orange County. To date Self has composed over 80 works from symphony, band, brass band, chamber music, and solo works.

Born in 1943 in Franklin PA, Self holds degrees from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Catholic University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, where he is currently Adjunct Professor of tuba and chamber music. In March 2003, Self was given a Distinguished Alumni Award by Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a university-wide honor only given to 290 of its more than 100,000 graduates. In addition, in June 2008 Self received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Tuba-Euphonium Association at the Cincinnati Conservatory. In the March 2019 issue of the AFM International Musician he was on the cover and featured in an extensive story. Early in his career he was in the U.S. Army Band in Washington DC and was the Tuba professor at the University of Tennessee.

Self has produced 18 solo jazz and classical recordings that feature jazz greats like Gary Foster, Pete Christlieb, Francisco Torres, Ron Kalina, and Warren Luening. Many feature his own unique instrument, the FLUBA (picture a tuba-sized Flugel Horn). His latest recordings are Flying Circus, Music for Brass Quintet, all original music by Self featuring 25 of the top brass players in Los Angeles including 10 members of the Pacific Symphony entitled Out on the Coast, and a triple CD by the 13 piece David Angel Jazz Ensemble and three Duo jazz CDs with guitarist John Chiodini: Floating in Winter, The Light Fantastic, and Hangin Out. All of Self’s music and recordings are also available from: www.jimself.com. Self is a Yamaha Performing Artist. Self and his wife Jamie are proud to endow many music scholarships at American universities.

John Stevens

John Stevens

Composer

John Stevens (b. 1951) has enjoyed a distinguished career as a chamber, orchestral, solo, and jazz performer and recording artist on the tuba, university professor, composer, arranger, conductor, and administrator. He holds degrees in Music Performance from the Eastman School of Music (1973) and Yale University (1975). His successful career as a freelance performer in New York City included membership in the Aspen Festival Orchestra, New York Tuba Quartet, numerous other chamber ensembles, and as the original tuba soloist in some 500 performances of Barnum on Broadway.

He also performed with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera stage bands, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera, and many other New York City based orchestras, the San Francisco Ballet, Houston Symphony, and toured and recorded with, among others, Chuck Mangione and the American Brass Quintet.

Following his years in New York, he spent four years on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Music, where he also was the tubist in the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida and the Greater Miami Opera. In 1985 he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where he presided over one of the most prestigious low brass studios in the country, was the tubist with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, and served as the Director of the School of Music for a total of seven years. He has participated in symposia, festivals, and competitions in Italy, Spain, France, England, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Mexico, and throughout the United States. He is now Emeritus Professor of Music, having retired from the university in May, 2014.

Stevens is an internationally renowned composer with over 65 published original compositions as well as numerous arrangements. To date there are also over 50 recordings of his music by soloists and ensembles all over the world. He has concentrated on composing for brass, and has been commissioned to compose works for, among others, Roger Bobo, Harvey Phillips, Brian Bowman, Gene Pokorny, The Wisconsin Brass Quintet, the Sotto Voce and Melton tuba quartets, consortia of prestigious brass soloists, the International Tuba and Euphonium Association and the International Trumpet Guild. He has also been commissioned by major orchestras in the United States and abroad, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Madison Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony and Duisburg Philharmonic, as well as wind bands and choral groups.

In 2008, Stevens received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Tuba and Euphonium Association, the highest honor in his field. Since retiring in 2014 he continues to live in Madison and is focusing on composing and arranging.

N. Lincoln Hanks

Composer

N. Lincoln Hanks is a composer, singer, and conductor who thrives in the outer regions of music. As a singer he specializes in the music of the medieval, renaissance, and baroque areas, and he continues to perform with many Los Angeles early music groups, including Tesserae and Musica Angelica. He was a cofounder of The Concord Ensemble, an a cappella group that won Grand Prize in the first Early Music America/Dorian Records Competition.

As a specialist in new music, Lincoln conducts Pepperdine University’s premiere new music group The Pickford Ensemble, and he is a composer whose works have been performed by many distinguished performing artists and groups, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Cyprus String Quartet, The Dale Warland Singers, The California Bach Society, Gerry Pagano (bass trombone), and many others. He has won the Contemporary Choral Composition Competition from The Roger Wagner Center for Choral Studies, and an ASCAP award. Lincoln has also been honored as a finalist in the Lilly Fellows Program Arlin G. Meyer Prize for his dramatic cantata, Tegel Passion. His epic solo piano work, Monstre sacré, was recently featured on New Generations, a solo CD recording with Paul Barnes, pianist, under Philip Glass’ Orange Mountain Music label. The work has also been performed and recorded by renowned new music champion, Jeffrey Jacob. Lincoln is a Professor of Music at Pepperdine University.

Robert Marsteller

Arranger

Robert Marsteller was born October 31,1918 in Sterling CO and passed away June18,1975 in Bozeman MT. Born and raised in Colorado, he attended the Eastman School of Music on a full scholarship from 1936-1940. During his 25 years with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Marsteller played for Alfred Wallenstein, Eduard Van Beinum, and Zubin Mehta. He also performed regularly on radio, television, and for motion pictures and the Los Angeles Opera. Over a nearly 30 year period he recorded for such labels and studios as Decca, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, and Universal.

During his teaching career at USC, which spanned his 29 years in Los Angeles, he arranged many pieces for his students. His publishing credits include Basic Routines, Advanced Slide Technique, Bach Sonatas, and other solos (all for Southern Music Co.) as well as Advanced Trombone and the Hal Leonard Method (trombone) for Hal Leonard.

Marsteller’s solo career included engagements with many major orchestras and the Southern California premieres of a number of trombone works, most notably, Paul Creston’s Fantasy for Trombone, which Alfred Wallenstein commissioned for Marsteller in 1948.

Notes

Coming up with a title for this album was probably the easiest part of the project. I have always considered it a great gift to be able to earn a living as a musician. That alone would be enough for me but the thrill of such an opportunity is enhanced by the privilege of working with large groups of superb musicians who have also become very close friends. Overcoming many quiet fears, I approached several of these friends about commissioning a work for trombone and piano. Fully prepared for polite or even terse rejections, Stanley, Lincoln, and Jim were not only willing but happy to undertake such a project. At the time I contacted John Stevens; he was already working on his sonata for Mark Fisher. The works by Jack Hayes and Robert Marsteller have a rather different background. Over the years I was privileged to participate in Hoyt’s Garage with Hoyt Bohannon, Tommy Pederson, and many of Los Angeles’s very fine trombonists. From the late 1940s through the 1980s Hoyt, Tommy, and others had written and collected a great library of trombone ensemble music for trio, quartet, and up to twelve-part arrangements. From these stacks of music I often played a manuscript version of Marsteller’s five part Bach arrangement. Hoyt also had a copy — on very old and faded thermofax paper — of Jack Hayes Fantasy, music that was written for and premiered by Lloyd Ulyate in Los Angeles. To my knowledge, neither of these pieces had been published or recorded. Once the process of learning and performing all these pieces in preparation for recording them began, it became apparent how many talented and supportive colleagues contributed to and were necessary for this project. I know some will be forgotten in the official credits list but I want to thank all who have been involved in any and many ways. I am reminded on a daily basis of the resources these people offer. I can’t speak of gifts and support without thanking my entire extended family. From the time I first studied music seriously in high school and ever since, they have been supportive, encouraging, always interested in what I was doing and wishing me well. I couldn’t have gotten here without you and wouldn’t want to be here or anywhere else without you.

— Andrew Malloy

The Sonata for Trombone and Piano was completed in July, 1999 as a commission for Andrew Malloy. The work is based on a troublesome 12 tone row, the intervals of which imply a shifting chromatic tonality. Sometimes the row gets a strict serial treatment; at other times the “rules” of 12 tone composition are bent, allowing the implied tonal harmonies to blossom. As the work progresses, the conflict and cooperation between tonal and atonal elements form a structural subtext to the overt classical forms. The three movements follow a traditional form: I. Allegro (sonata form with fugal development); I.Andante (Chaconne); III: Allegro non Troppo (Rondo).

— Stanley Friedman

Dozeandeeze for solo trombone was written for my friend and colleague, Andy Malloy. The piece is about six minutes in length, being tonal and modal, rhythmically energetic, and reflective of some of the quasi-commercial styles that Malloy and I hear on recording sessions. It is in three sections: a rather slow beginning, a neo classical middle section and a fast, energetic finale. The solo trombone part uses the entire range of the tenor trombone (with F attachment) and there are many rhythmic challenges for both players. The title is a tongue in cheek play on Andy’s name.

– Jim Self

The Sonata for Trombone and Piano was composed in the summer of 2002 with funding support from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was written for Mark Fisher, who is a trombonist with the Chicago Lyric and Santa Fe operas as well as being an active soloist on both trombone and euphonium. The work was premiered by Fisher in March, 2003 in a guest recital on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

— John Stevens

“An esoteric work that evolves from a composer’s technical manipulation and mental abstractions,”(New Harvard Dictionary of Music), a fantasy provides an open playground for a composer to step away from the usual forms and styles and write freely in an almost improvisatory fashion. Fantasy for Trombone and Piano is very much a rendering of my own “mental abstractions.” In six broad sections, the work requires a bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style of playing from the trombonist. No mutes or extended techniques are required, just long-breathed lyrical playing of soaring, shapely melodies set against a piano accompaniment that is often composed in the opposite fashion: syncopated, repetitive, and sequential style. In the faster sections, jazz harmonies, fast and “third relation” modulations keep the tonality in constant motion.