Riffs

Riffs
Composer: John Weinzweig (1913 – 2006)
Publisher: Avondale Press
Instrumentation: Flute

John Weinzweig(1913-2006) Riffs for solo flute reflects the characteristics of the “many moods of jazz blues”-the improvised manner within a twelve-bar melodic form, the slow, sad, melancholy feeling interrupted with highly-charged “shouts” and a dialogue of call-and-response patterns coloured by bent pitch inflections. The work is composed in twelve segments of various durations related only by the Blues style and a recurring long-tone cadence on a low G. The title Riffs is the jazz-man's slang for repreated jazz figures that are a feature of the work.