Mystic with a Credit Card (1978)
by Michael Colgrass
Mystic
with a Credit Card is an excerpt from my brass quintet, Flashbacks, commissioned
by the Canadian Brass in 1978 and premiered by
them at Tully Hall in New
York on February 6, 1979.
In Flashbacks I attempt to feature each of the quintet members in a way
that fits the nature of their instrument. This excerpt for trombone features
the instrument’s broad emotional scope, which spans from gently expressive
to barbaric. Mystic with a Credit Card gives the soloist a chance to demonstrate
this range of qualities in a theatrical context. As well as playing, the trombone
player speaks to the audience in an almost confessional way about feeling
lost in a fast-changing multi-cultural society. I express this idea musically
by showing the close stylistic relationship between East Indian music and
Western blues, where the two styles can at times sound so similar that the
stylistic identity of each becomes blurred. This mosaic of styles represents
the blend of the divergent cultures in the soloist, whose feelings are never
quite resolved.