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Description
Duration: 10:48
(You need headphones or good speakers to hear the string bass; when I play it through my laptop speakers it is barely audible.)
Your basic 12-bar blues… sort of. Lots of chord substitutions. All notated (no chord charts; all voicings written out), except the drums which was improvised. Written for piano, trumpet, drums, and string bass. This was my first attempt at a jazz/contemporary classical crossover piece.
Image: Back when I dreamed of being a professional musician and worked for a bus company, I'd frequent a small jazz club after a late shift, where the music was always smoky, but hardly anyone would be there to hear. I'd listen for as long as I could, just absorbing the music, wishing I could play that well one day. Eventually, I quit my job and began studying music, and this composition was written as a kind of remembrance of those late nights spent by myself listening to very fine jazz music.
Performed here, once again, by colleagues and students. This recording was done after a concert of my music. This particular piece was not recorded properly during the concert, so the players had to come back to record it again in the empty concert hall, with the lights turned down low, after everyone had gone home. They were pretty burned-out after giving it their all during the concert, which actually works to the advantage of this piece, because that lazy, hazy late-night groove is captured pretty well.
It's a little "out there," so it may not be to everyone's taste. Comments always welcome; my basic question with any of my music is, does it speak to you in any way?
(You need headphones or good speakers to hear the string bass; when I play it through my laptop speakers it is barely audible.)
Your basic 12-bar blues… sort of. Lots of chord substitutions. All notated (no chord charts; all voicings written out), except the drums which was improvised. Written for piano, trumpet, drums, and string bass. This was my first attempt at a jazz/contemporary classical crossover piece.
Image: Back when I dreamed of being a professional musician and worked for a bus company, I'd frequent a small jazz club after a late shift, where the music was always smoky, but hardly anyone would be there to hear. I'd listen for as long as I could, just absorbing the music, wishing I could play that well one day. Eventually, I quit my job and began studying music, and this composition was written as a kind of remembrance of those late nights spent by myself listening to very fine jazz music.
Performed here, once again, by colleagues and students. This recording was done after a concert of my music. This particular piece was not recorded properly during the concert, so the players had to come back to record it again in the empty concert hall, with the lights turned down low, after everyone had gone home. They were pretty burned-out after giving it their all during the concert, which actually works to the advantage of this piece, because that lazy, hazy late-night groove is captured pretty well.
It's a little "out there," so it may not be to everyone's taste. Comments always welcome; my basic question with any of my music is, does it speak to you in any way?
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Lyrics
(instrumental)
I've stepped into some late 1940's flick with a down on his luck private
detective nursing a bullet wound and a broken heart at the end of the bar.
Very evocative and well done.