Straight Shot Blues is inspired by the music of Thelonious Monk. This piece intends to create the illusion of two soloists, contrasting in register and character, who expand and experiment with the main theme of his jazz standard ‘Straight, No Chaser’. One ‘soloist’ exploits Monk’s use of rhythmic displacement in the chalumeau register while the other embraces a more improvisational approach to explore derivations of the theme in the clarion register. Anchored by underlying blues progressions, these melodic derivations are altered gradually until the nature of the original tune is revealed.

Straight Shot Blues was performed by Frankie Gale, a final year BMus student at the University of Manchester, in March 2021.