The Adventures of Paul Bunyan

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Instrumentation: Brass Quintet (2 tpt, horn, trb, tuba)

Duration: 12'

Program Note:

The Adventures of Paul Bunyan was written as an ode to home. Shelton Washington’s annual Forest Festival features a “life-sized” Paul and Babe the Blue Ox paraded down Railroad Ave. that I’ve seen growing up. While it is true that the fabled home of Paul Bunyan is somewhere near the Minnesota-Canada border, Shelton is a logging town, and so it must have felt appropriate for an early Shelton to make Paul our unofficial mascot. As for inspirational literature, I am pulling from several Bunyan tales, but most prominently from James Steven’s 1925 book Paul Bunyan, who was among the first to write Paul into a PNW context. 

The first movement depicts the first meeting of Bunyan and Babe in a blue-cold snowstorm. Somewhere in a blizzard up in the North, Bunyan sees blue ears peeking out of the snow and discovers a giant blue ox calf. He took the calf back to his cave shelter to feed it and warm it by the fire, but Babe had already adopted his characteristic blue hue. Muted textures depict the cold, quiet stillness of a frozen forest, contrasted later in the piece by the turbulent winds and sideways snow.

          “For this great baby calf was of a bright blue hue which was neither darker nor lighter than the color of the beautiful strange snow.“  

The second movement is a short set of three dance variations on the ‘Bunyan’ theme, depicting titular adventures across the continent creating the famous American landmarks. These dances are written in a quasi-bluegrass style, not only because the style generally reflects the sound of American folk music, but because I was inspired by Shelton’s own appreciation for bluegrass. Every year, the Bluegrass in the Forest festival pulls musicians from across the coast, several of which directly inspired the creation of this movement.   

          “What old logger does not feel his own soul dance as he hears the soft, vibrant patter of his right foot, the thunderous stamp of his left foot, the sharp rattle of his heel-cracking in a great breakdown?” 

The third movement is a funeral song for Babe. In Steven’s account of the Bunyan tales, Babe suddenly falls very sick with seemingly no hope of recovery. Fortunately for Bunyan’s logging troupe, and for all of us, Babe does recover! But at for the loggers there, Babe’s passing would mean the end of the logging troupe. The mood of this funeral song moves from solemn lament to nostalgia, to grief, and to acceptance. I pull from classic barbershop idiom for the beginning and ending ‘Goodbye’ sections. 

          “Paul Bunyan told them that Babe would surely die, and as logging could not be done without him, their last labor together would be to dig his grave.”

The fourth and final movement is titled The Sound, a double meaning. The first meaning is literal sound, but the second is the Puget Sound I grew up on. Steven attributes the creation of the Sound to Bunyan, being the unfinished grave of Babe, and the mound of dirt left behind now known as Mount Rainier. This movement then is full of optimism and majesty, using rhythm as the driving force of the waters.

          “Babe’s unfinished grave has become the islands and waters of Puget Sound.”