Category: Jazz

This is the last of the demos I recorded with Steve Talaga on an afternoon in September. While most of these tunes fall under the umbrella of jazz, this one…doesn’t.

And that’s okay. I just want to write good music, letting the labels sort themselves out later. What I really like about this one is the lyrics. It imagines an aging woman looking in the mirror and realizing all the good things the years have brought. Our culture is so fixated on youth and beauty that it leaves lots of us feeling like time has passed us by. But there are so many beautiful things that come with age: wisdom, experience, memories, and resilience for whatever will come next.

1. As you look in the mirror,
the lines you once had feared
now seem like signs marking
where the road still might lead.

The final chapters may be nearer,
but that just makes it sweeter
to read the stories that are
etched in your skin.

2. The eyes looking back remind you
of all the life you hold inside you;
there’s still a little girl
within.

She is older and wiser,
slower and kinder,
and richer for all the beauty
years can bring.

See how the time has flown!
But your soul, it still lives on.
See how the time has flown!
But your soul lives on.

3. You could try to leave it all behind you,
but the past will always find you;
and now it almost
feels like a friend.

You will need it to guide you;
the path ahead is winding
and will lead to places
you have never been.

The years that have long gone by
still lay deep inside.
The years that have long gone by–
let them be your guide.

I have a certain ambivalence about this tune. It is So. Freaking. Happy.

And happy can easily be trite.

I will let you, dear listener, decide if this little bonbon of a tune is happy, trite, or both. (Or neither?)

That’s the thing about creativity. You need to stay open as ideas come to you. If you don’t you’ll find yourself writing the same song over and over again. (Yes, Keith Getty and Mumford & Sons, I’m looking at you!) Certainly, there are a lot of ideas that I don’t end up using or that die on the vine. But I’d rather develop three ideas and see which one produces good fruit than cut ideas off at the root because they don’t fit a particular agenda. Play the song a few times for an audience and it will sort itself out.

This tune has been reworked more times than it’s been played!

It is named “Sehnsucht” (German: longing) for the yearning motif that begins the tune. I knew I had something good, but was never quite able to bring the tune to a satisfying close. A few suggestions from Steve Talaga (playing piano in this recording) set me on a path that feels just right.

Ah! Longing has never felt this good!

This one’s a keeper. I’ve used it on a number of gigs since I wrote it back in October and each time it casts a special spell.

Indeed, that’s the magical thing about jazz: a perfectly good song may never catch fire and a simple song like this one might become more than the sum or its parts–a vehicle for the musicians to go to a place they haven’t been before.

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.