Austin Symphonic Band Performing Saddle Up!
Austin Symphonic Band. April 23, 2023 concert at the Connally HS Performing Arts Center in Austin, TX. ASB performing Saddle Up! by Clifton Jones. Music Director Dr. Kyle R. Glaser conducting. "Texas Treasures" Concert.
Video and Sound Production: Eddie Jennings
From the program notes written by David Cross:
Saddle Up! (2012)
Clifton Jones (b. 1962)
Saddle Up! is a pastiche of several well-known cowboy tunes:
Red River Valley first appeared in sheet music form in 1896, and most likely was written to describe the Northern part of the Red River separating Minnesota and North Dakota. Gene Autry further popularized the song in the 1936 Western film Red River Valley. These recordings and others like it helped cement the song’s association with cowboys and the Red River of the South.
The Yellow Rose of Texas was first notated in 1853 and was used as a rallying song by the Confederate forces during the Civil War. It reached its height of popularity when Mitch Miller turned it into a Billboard number-one hit in 1955.
Whoopee-Ti-Yi-Yo joined the Cowboy genre in 1896. Its subtitle, “Git Along Little Dogies,” refers to the working Cowboy and romanticizes the round-up. For those wondering, dogies is an amalgamation of dough guts and refers to the protruding belly of an unweaned calf.
Cotton-Eyed Joe was first published in 1882. One take on the meaning of cotton-eyed is that it refers to a drunk cowboy blinded by moonshine.
Clifton Jones is celebrating his 32nd year as a member of the Austin Symphonic Band, for which he has had many valuable opportunities to write and arrange. He is a past member of the San Antonio Municipal Band. In addition, he is a member of the Texas Music Educators Association and Texas Bandmasters Association. He also works on the railroad as a volunteer with the Austin Steam Train Association.
Jones writes, “Dick Floyd had suggested to me to write a piece based on Texas folk-songs. I had avoided writing such a piece since the Texas songs that everyone knows are almost always written in the same clichéd way. The lyrics to Yellow Rose of Texas are very sentimental, so I set it as a ballad rather than a march and everything else followed. Dick Floyd has a great ability to assess whether a piece will work or be successful after one or two readings. If a piece worked, he’d let me know, and if a piece was a dud, he’d let me know that, too. Besides being a great conductor, he’s a great musical resource, and he was always very supportive musically and personally.”
Listen for:
• A thoroughly modern treatment of these tunes, with low brass taking the lead on Red River Valley
• The Yellow Rose of Texas, as if penned by a hip J. S. Bach
• Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo in waltz form
• A romping accelerating galop through Cotton-Eyed Joe
