This happy-go-lucky tune positively sparkles under Steve Talaga’s fingers.
Listening to this after a while away reminds of of something one of my composition teachers used to tell me, “When you’re young you have lots of ideas; when you’re old you know what to do with them.” Indeed, this song is almost entirely spun from the opening two-bar melodic motif. How’s that for economy of expression?!
I’ve written about this song previously, so I’ll let this newer, cleaner recording speak for itself.
For the record, I’m not entirely sold on my own voice. However, it is what I had available at the time.
It is unfortunate that we couldn’t record “8 Lives” with a full band. It is a jazz fusion tune that would really have benefited from drums. Indeed, we were prepared to play it with full band at an Outside Pocket concert in October, but we ran out of time.
The song doesn’t break new ground, but it unfolds in a way that offers new twists at a satisfying pace. For example, in the B section the chords move up to Eb and then down to C. This is not new musical territory, but it provides just the right amount of lift to sustain interest.
Why the name “8 Lives”? The angular melody is built on a series of fourths. 4+4=8. This not only gives the tune a bright, open, airy feel, but it suggested a pretty good song title.
“Slowly” (the song) has slowly (the adverb) been making its way into Outside Pocket gigs. I thought it was time I made a clean recording of it–though this is by no means anything fancy.
This is a love song, but a cautious one. We all know the hesitancy to jump back into a relationship after being hurt by a previous one.
Some things I like about this song musically: The bold leaps down a 6th are striking and give the song a unique musical fingerprint. Those leaps are answered by quick runs that, I can say firsthand, are quite difficult to sing. Finally, the shift back and forth between the Ebmaj7 (sweet) and Abm/maj7 (spicy) sets up a nice tension that keeps things from getting too syrupy.
“Mode Blue” was one of a few songs in which I played with the minor blues form. A minor jazz blues tune invariably moves from the minor i chord to the minor iv chord, i.e. Am to Dm. (Read more here.) I started to wonder, “Would it still feel like a minor blues if it moved from Am to Gm?” I know, I’m a pretty interesting guy with a riveting thought life.
The answer, of course, is, I’ll let you decide.
Before 2023 ends, I wanted to return to the recordings I made with Steve Talaga. As you may remember, these were a dozen or so jazz tunes that he and I recorded one afternoon in September. Nothing fancy, just playing through the tunes and recording them in one or two takes.
Americana was written in a hotel room in Detroit, where I played bass during the day while my wife trained for a new job. I thought it would be fun to have a song intended specifically for the bass. True, there are iconic bass lines like “So What” and “All Blues,” but I was thinking something that allowed the bass to come to the foreground.
What I came up with is “Americana.” It is a simple tune that uses the open strings of the bass to create a sweeping melody. It has overtones of pentatonic melodies like “Shenandoah,” hence the title, “Americana.”
I have a certain ambivalence about Christmas music. On the one hand, I like a bit of schmalz as much as the next guy. On the other hand, do we really need to listen to Mariah Carey from the day after Halloween until shortly before the new year?!
Having said that, I was playing around at the piano the other day, and out popped an idea just begging to be a Christmas song. At first, I was thinking it would be a miss-you-at-Christmas song, a la “Blue Christmas.” But then I thought of how beautiful Michigan is in the winter and what a lovely place it is for family to gather on the holidays. So I wrote an ode to our fair state from the perspective of someone hoping to bring far-flung loved ones back for Christmas.
1. Arizona sounds great
on a winter day,
but I’d miss all the
magic of a snowflake.
Warm and sunny every day
has its charms, I guess,
but I still love the way
the seasons change.
2. As the fire of autumn leaves
begins to freeze
and the sun shines so bright
upon the city’s streets;
Oh, the air may be brisk–
I don’t mind a bit
when I think of the warm home
waiting for me.
Don’t you miss it
in the Mitten?
You know your home
will always be here.
Don’t you miss it
in the Mitten?
Come back for
Christmas in Michigan.
Continuing the series of jazz demos I recorded with Steve Talaga, here is something a little different. “Can We Begin This Again?” is perhaps at the edges of jazz, depending on how you define jazz. It leans toward the pop side of things: Laufey*, Sade, Norah Jones, or Bruce Hornsby, for example.
More notable are the lyrics. It’s so easy to get stuck in the trappings of genre: heavy metal is angry, singer-songwriters are introspective, and jazz is about romance, found and lost. In this song, we’re listening in on two lovers arguing. There is the immediate need to deescalate and take up the conversation later, the realization that a lot of our conflict is based on past events rather than what your partner said or did, and the hope that friction is one of the things that makes a relationship go deeper. In that way, it’s a lot like the Williams Brothers’ song, “Friction.”
1. Can we begin this again
when we’ve both had some sleep,
some time to cool off
and some space to think?
This is just going to end
the way it began:
with so many words
we’re going to regret.
Words that are heard as an echo
of voices that hurt us long ago.
Can we begin this again?
2. We can’t begin this again
as if we’d just met;
as if there’s nothing to lose
and the cement is still wet.
As time goes on
ruts start to form,
but love can grow deep
as the path is worn.
Can we grow closer still through the failure and pain?
Offer the tender parts of our hearts every day?
Can we begin this again?
*For a fascinating introduction to Gen-Z phenom Laufey, see Adam Neely’s video, Is Laufey Jazz?
Sometimes you have to cut through all the angst and just be happy, right?
This song is a light and airy pop tune whose instructions say: “Without a trace of cynicism.” Indeed, it is one of the happiest tunes I’ve ever written; hence the title, “Content.”
Now, it might seem that writing a carefree little tune would be easy, but this actually went through about five drafts before I settled on a final version that felt bouyant, but not cloying; a bon bon of musical goodness that was satisfying rather than sickeningly sweet.
This is just a quick demo of a song I introduced previously. Interestingly, shortly after Steve Talaga and I recorded this demo, I changed the key of the song to put it in a better range for the horns that played it with me at an Outside Pocket concert on Friday, 10/06/23.
Maybe I’ll post the recording of “Big Bottom Blues” from Friday’s concert in the future. For now, enjoy this one-take wonder.