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!
The jazz tune of the week is “No More Need to Be Blue.” It is all sunshine and light. In fact, I wrote some lyrics for this one, and they’re all about the hope of a new morning after a long, dark night. I’m not sure how many jazz tunes with lyrics I’ll write, but I have noticed a distinct lack of lyrical depth in vocal jazz. I would love to hear more introspection and insight in a music genre that has so much emotion.
Today, today the light streams in, your life begins again. It somehow feels like the start of something new.
And now, now that the night is finally done, you turn to face the morning sun: nothing to hide or to lose.
All those dark days that you’re leaving behind will fade away like morning dew. All the sadness will disappear in dawning light.
There’s no more need to be blue. There’s no more need to be blue.
Faithful followers of this blog–both of you–will know that I’ve been writing a new jazz tune every week for my Thursday night gig at Euro Bistro. It has been great fun, and though I have no immediate need for a stack of jazz songs, it has reaffirmed love affair with notes. There are just 12 notes, but they combine in so many interesting ways that I find it endlessly fascinating. After 40 years of composing, I’m still discovering new things!
The downside of this weekly output is that I run out of titles. I can only write so many songs named for my fellow musicians (“Waltz for Ed,” “Susan’s Blues”) without it becoming…creepy. When I’m at a loss for new tune names, I often name them for something that describes some feature of the music or reminds me of what I was doing at the time of writing. In this case, I named the song “CP504” for the IRS tax form that lets one know they’re planning to seize one’s property for unpaid taxes. (Jen and I got one; it’s a clerical error on their end.)
I should point out that these recordings are made by sticking my iPhone on my music stand and pressing record. You can hear how things begin tentatively and slowly pick up steam. If you listen closely, you can also hear Susan (the violinist) turn to me and suggest that the restaurant should make this song their hold music. Ironically, as I write this blogpost, I’m on hold with the IRS. I heartily agree that my song would be a lot better than what the IRS has provided me for hold music.*
*For those of you who are interested, the current IRS hold music is in the key of E, features a melody with lots of seconds, harmonies with open fifths, and rocks back and forth between E and A with an exciting shift to C#m at one point.
This week’s jazz tune is called “Jenopédie.” What does that mean, you wonder? Well, certainly you’ve heard Erik Satie’s iconic “Gymnopédie #1.” As I worked on my tune I realized that it shared the same opening chords as that piece. So, with the tip of my bowler hat to Satie, I combined his composition’s title and my wife’s name (Jen) to create “Jenopédie.”
The tune doesn’t fit the normal categories one encounters with jazz standards–swing, bossa, waltz, etc–but instead falls in the cracks somewhere between ballad and I’m not sure what. Indeed, that’s one of things I like about it. It feels fresh but also familiar.
It seems to have struck a chord. You can hear the hostess walk up to us in the middle of the song and ask what it is and tell us how much she likes it!
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.
My Just Add People! series of piano accompaniments for congregational singing has got to be one of the best-kept secrets of the church music world. Each one adds a new twist or little sparkle that enlivens the congregation’s singing. My new arrangement of “Holy God, We Praise Your Name” uses the traditional harmonies for verses 1, 2, and 4, but adds an intro, coda, and effervescent third verse. As you can see from the video below, it is easy to integrate pipe organ with the piano.
Watch for a PDF of the sheet music at my main website soon!
When I’m not planning worship services for Fuller Ave CRC, learning a new notation program, or chipping away at my mammoth new composition based on Psalm 119, I’m writing arrangements like this piano accompaniment for “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” Counterpoint in a hymn accompaniment? You betcha!
Look for the sheet music soon in the Just Add People! section of my website.
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.
I first heard this catchy little Swahili song in the video below, which was recorded at my previous church. I am ashamed to admit that I know little about it except that it is sung in Swahili, a language spoken throughout East Africa. However, I was able to get my hands on the Swahili lyrics and a literal translation; from that, I created the translation and harmonization above. The beauty of songs like this is their simplicity. The lyrics are not deep and the music is not sophisticated–but it is heartfelt. It also leaves lots of room for a good leader to create new verses that fit the moment. (“We are listening,” “We will follow,” etc)
Each week as I plan worship services, I study the scriptures the preacher has chosen in order to plan music that fits their theme. I spend lots of time at hymnary.org searching for songs and often find things that are just about perfect, but use archaic language, are slightly off topic, or have unwieldy melodies. In those cases, I might “re-tune” the hymn or simply use the text as a launching pad for an entirely new song.
That was the case this week when I ran across John Chandler’s hymn “O Christ, Our Hope, Our Heart’s Desire,” a translation of the Latin hymn, “Jesu, nostra redemption, amor et desiderium.” It’s a fine hymn that fit Rev. Dale Cooper’s message “Eastered Living: Faith on Tiptoe” well. But the tune was…uninspiring.
I began by writing a new tune. That was the easy part, taking only 10 minutes. But then I went through a half dozen drafts of the original tune until it felt just right. In time I decided to write a new text that stayed closer to the theme of dying and rising with Christ. After much scribbling, erasing, and rewriting, I arrived at “O Risen Christ, Our Living Hope.”
1. O risen Christ, our living hope, our loving Savior whom we sing a grateful song of endless love a tune that flows from mercy’s stream:
Chorus How vast the grace, how great the love– as deep as any sea. You died our death and rose to life that we might live abundantly.
2. Long were we trapped in sin’s foul grasp– a darkened dungeon of despair– until you stormed the gates of death. Life filled our lungs, hope filled the air. Chorus
3. And now we live in Jesus Christ, those once discarded, now redeemed. Christ bore our death, we share his life, and all our days repeat the theme: Chorus
4. Were we to have a thousand lives and endless breath to sing your praise, no song could speak, no tongue express, no mind could know, no heart convey: Chorus
