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Brief notes:

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Dedicated to Alfredo Susavila and the 'Púrpura Pansa' Quartet. First performance was given by 'Púrpura Pansa' Quartet and the Silleda Municipal Wind Orchestra, conducted by Rafa Agulló at Green-Week Concert Hall, Silleda, Spain, April 19, 2014.

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Jazz suite is scored for a solo saxophone quartet (two altos, one tenor and one baritone), a jazz ensemble (piano, electric guitar, electric bass and drums) and wind orchestra, being mainly orchestrated as a 'big, big band' throughout the entire piece. It is divided into three movements entirely autonomous from each other, exploring (or immersing) into a characteristic style linked to a particular era of jazz, from the golden 20's and 30's to the fusion of 40's to 70's, walking through the swing era of Count Basie, Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman to the Afro-Cuban jazz of Dizzy Gillespie, Machito or Michel Camilo.

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I. Swing. Swing jazz emerged as a dominant form in the American music. Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band sound included bandleaders and arrangers as Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw among others. This first movement, lively in spirit, is cast in a modified standard form (A – A – B – A), broadly written in the block chord style technique, that is a voicing built directly below the melody either on the strong beats, generating a four-part harmonized melody line in "locked-hands" rhythmic unison with the melody, as opposed to the broken chords. Also known as Shearing voicing, was popularized by George Shearing, but originated with Phil Moore.

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II. Ballad. This second movement was written few years before the conception of Jazz suite, being originally conceived as a harmony exercise. It works also like the slow movement (that is why ballad comes as title), within the three-movements concerto form popularized in the 18th Century (fast - slow - fast). Although it is initially written in the standard 32-bars form, there are introduced certain formal elements that disaggregate its structure. For instance, the solo (in this case not improvised) is not developed over the main chords progression, but over a modified version of "They Long to Be Close to You" composed by Burt Bacharach and released in 1963 by Richard Chamberlain. An Afro-Cuban rhythm, somewhat 'bembe', is superimposed (fusion-like) along the entire movement by congas, gaining prominence in the C section, thus obtaining a final structure of A – A – B – C, preceded and concluded with an introduction and coda respectively. 

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III. Latin. Latin jazz is a genre of jazz with Latin American rhythms. The two main categories are Afro-Cuban jazz, rhythmically based on Cuban popular dance music, with a rhythm section employing ostinato patterns or a clave, and Afro-Brazilian jazz, which includes samba and bossa nova. This movement is cast in a ternary form (A – B – A) where both ideas are contrasted by use of rhythm and harmony, somewhat 'spicy', due to a reiterative use of tensions stacked over the dominant chords, widely influenced by the sound of Michel Camilo and Dizzy Gillespie, whose "Just Kidding" and "Tin Tin Deo" respectively, exerted a gravitational center along its genesis.

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