Album Notes

Mark J. Inouye is one of a very select group of trumpeters, equally at home in the worlds of jazz and classical music. After attending the University of California at Davis for two years as a civil engineering major, Mr. Inouye transferred to the Juilliard School and later played with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Kurt Masur. He was a guest performer at the Hollywood Bowl in the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles and toured the United States with Toccatas & Flourishes, the nationally acclaimed organ and trumpet duo. He has appeared as a soloist in Wynton Marsalis’ video production, Marsalis On Music, which aired on BBC2 in Europe and on PBS in North America. He was also a soloist with the Tanglewood Wind Ensemble led by Seiji Ozawa. Mr. Inouye toured in Europe, Asia, Canada, and the United States with the Empire Brass Quintet. He was Principal Trumpet with the Charleston Symphony and played Associate Principal Trumpet in the San Francisco Symphony. Mr. Inouye was the Principal Trumpet with the Houston Symphony from 2004-06 and appeared as a soloist performing the Tartini Violin Concerto, arranged for trumpet.

Notes about THE TRUMPET & THE BULL:

Three tracks were taken from The Bull Behind the Horns – Jazz Suite, which I started writing in 2003. We have so many sayings that involve parts of the bull – “bull's-eye”, “bull-headed”, “grab the bull by the horns”, I wanted to write a piece just about the Bull itself. I ended up having more and more inspiration and ideas about “The Bull” that it became a Suite. The nice thing about doing this is that I kept it open ended so I could add pieces as new ideas came to me. So here’s a little bit of information about my compositions on the album The Trumpet & The Bull. Enjoy!

Thanks for checking out the album,

Mark

1. The Contempti-Bull: An up tempo, high-energy opening track that gets the bull off and running.
2. Groggy: A relaxed medium swing tune I wrote late at night when I was half asleep.
3. The Prince Bull (Appointed Surreptitiously): A bluesy tune in 11 that really swings when the full band starts playing!
4. Find The Cheese: I had the idea for this one summer when I was living in a small Italian town (Martina Franca). I was constantly lost in the zig-zag of streets between my apartment and the piazza where I performed. My roommate and I felt like little lab mice desperately in search of our apartment, the prize, which we aptly nicknamed “the cheese.”
5. Cinderella: I wrote this ballad a long time ago for a girl . . . who is now happily married . . . to somebody else.
6. The Lady Bull: This is a tune that keeps changing it’s colors and can’t make up its mind. It’s part waltz, part swing, part afro-cuban, and part chaos.
7. Washington Ave. Sidewalk Grooves: This hard driving samba was born out of a rhythm created on some grooves in a sidewalk in Miami Beach. The syncopated rhythm blended very well with the Latin influences of the city.

Finally, I would like to thank my friend Carol Morgan who inspired me in more ways than she knows to play jazz again.