This is, literally, my musical diary–notes fresh from my pen and recorded in a few hours. You can find my finished works elsewhere; here, it's all about capturing the moment!
I wrote a “Waltz for Ed” so it was only fair that I write a new tune for the other member of our jazz trio, Susan. It’s called “Susan’s Blues.” It starts with a bass groove (Ed and Susan felt that was a little self-serving) and then moves into a minor blues with a few twists. I quite like it. You can hear that everyone in the restaurant liked it, too. They all stopped what they were doing to listen to this world premiere jazz song. I’m kidding. They continued eating and talking, completely unaware that we were giving birth to a brand new song!
I’ve been playing a lot more jazz bass lately, courtesy of a weekly gig at Euro Bistro. (Thursdays, 6-9pm, if you’d like to come.) The thing about me is that if I play a lot of a particular kind of music, I tend to also write music in the same vein. As our trio makes its way through hundreds of jazz standards, I begin to internalize the musical logic and think about ways I can incorporate ideas into my own work.
“Human, Being” is a groove-oriented song. That is, unlike many songs from The Great American Songbook, the chords in this move slowly, allowing for expansive modal improvisation. Think “Stolen Moments” or “All Blues.” Of course, in this demo, it sounds like a mash-up of Steely Dan’s “Do It Again,” a bossa, and smooth jazz.
In recent months, I’ve had weekly bass gigs playing jazz at a local restaurant. Getting back into the swing (!) of playing jazz standards has inevitably led me to write a new tune for our group to play. Indeed, this is a recording of us playing it for the first time last night. You can hear by the room noise that the restaurant patrons were completely unaware that they were hearing a world premiere!
Why “Waltz for Ed?” you may ask. Our trio’s pianist, Ed Dublis, frequently calls the Bill Evans’ tune “Waltz for Debby.” So frequently, in fact, that I started thinking to myself, “This guy needs to learn another waltz!” My tune is a sprightly homage to “Waltz for Debby,” which is utterly beautiful. You can hear the original below. I aspire to play like Chuck Israels someday.
Paul Ryan periodically asks me to speak/sing at Calvin’s chapel. On January 14, 2019 my theme was “Joy Inside My Tears,” in which I explored the paradoxes of the Christian’s emotional life in scripture and song. Just in case you don’t want to listen raptly to all 20+ minutes, here is the outline:
Prelude: “Joy Inside My Tears” from Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life
At some point, I may become known as “the guy who writes birthday odes in which death is a dominant theme.” So be it. The sooner you grapple with your mortality, the sooner you can get out there and truly live!
This latest birthday ditty was written for my friend Ron Rienstra, who throws great birthday parties featuring free form jam sessions and ping pong tournaments. How could I resist throwing a lounge lizard birthday ballad into the mix?
You can hear it in the video below or read through it for yourself: PDF.
Update 11/4/21: Sheet music for this song can now be downloaded at gregscheer.com.
As I was working on Psalm 4, one of the commentaries I read mentioned the connection between Psalm 4’s deep peace amid distress and Philippians 4:7 “May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” I decided this would make a good musical coda to the Psalm.
Update 10/2/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
I recently posted a quick demo of a new tune I wrote for Debra Rienstra’s sweet setting of Psalm 25. Yesterday we introduced the song to the congregation. It went swimmingly, in part due to the leadership of the Rienstra Clan Band (Deb on viola, Ron on bass, Philip on sax).
It’s not a foregone conclusion that a jazzy piece will work with congregation. It may end up sounding too lounge lizardy or it may simply be too complex for a congregation to sing. I feel like we struck a good balance, keeping it from excess and caricature.
I’m pretty sure this song will soon become a staple of jazz worship services all over the world. All two of them.
For those of you who are considering using the song, see the link above for the most recent version.
Update 10/2/20: Sheet music for this song is available here.
10 years ago, my friend Debra Rienstra wrote a hymn text based on Psalm 25, called “Foothold.” Not only that, she won the Fuller Seminary School of Psychology Fortieth Anniversary hymn competition with it. As I began to work on an upcoming service in which she, her bass/guitar playing husband Ron, and her jazz sax improvising son Philip would be playing, that song came to mind.
But I wasn’t wild about the KINGSFOLD tune that the text had been paired with. Don’t get me wrong–KINGSFOLD is a great tune. But it is overused: “O Sing a Song of Bethlehem,” “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.” The list goes on and on. More importantly, the tune seemed like the wrong vessel for this text. It moved too quickly to allow the deep inner life of Deb’s text to emerge.
So I, being the incessant musical tinkerer that I am, set about to compose a tune that would do the text justice while also allowing Philip to unleash his inner Coltrane. I’m always nervous about changing the music a poet originally heard in her ear, but in this case the poet gave me permission to share, so I must not be too far off base.
Want to play it at the piano rather than listening to Greg croon? See the link above for the PDF.
Update 1/11/22: Sheet music for this tune is now available at gregscheer.com.
A few months ago I wrote a tune for a text by Herman Stuempfle. Strangely, when I went searching for a text to accompany this week’s sermon on the Wedding in Cana, I was led again to Stuempfle. Even stranger? The new text, “Come, Join in Cana’s Feast,” fits the same tune!
Because yesterday’s service was led by the Joyful Noise Orchestra, I had some cool instrumental options. I’m a huge fan of jazz with orchestra, so I broke out my hollow body Ibanez and wrote some string parts, a la Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’. Throw in Lauren Figueroa on vocals and Joel Klamer on tenor sax, I figure you can’t go wrong.
Here’s the the MP3 of the service. Below, for your listening pleasure is some real music: Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’.
