The "update on my music" entry
So at the beginning of the summer, I decided to put The Jazz Funeral together, this time with a serious band and with the prospect of finally releasing recordings. We've done four or five gigs so far this summer and have at least one more coming up, a big one on the 15th of this month.
There has also been progress made on the album, with six songs 90% completed or more. The idea all along was for me to release a 10+ song LP.
However, after hearing Dave Stagno's album (Daydream Radio - Making Friends), a new fire was lit under my ass.
Allow me to backtrack: Around the time when I started preparing songs for recording this album, I was still a composition student and was doing very intensive composition, mostly in the early 20th century tradition of atonality, but much more calculated; not "free". It was extremely tedious work, to say the least.
At the same time I was doing that, I started working on The Jazz Funeral material, and I think there was an unconscious effort to *not* do any sort of orchestration, or to bring in other instrumentalists, or to do anything that was too difficult. I stuck with mostly guitar/bass/drums, and that's the type of album I've got now - stripped down & raw, the songs in nearly their purest form.
But I have decided to release the album as is, right now. Six songs. An EP, not an LP. I had planned on having Discmakers print up a thousand of them, with fancy packaging and all; no more. We're going to take baby steps and take this slow.
No, the next one is going to be the big one.
I heard Dave's album, rich with wonderful orchestration (horns, woodwinds, strings, brass, accordion, and gobs of reverb), and it was so wonderful. I thought to myself, "If somebody with nearly NO knowledge of music and certainly no composition experience can come out with something so great, what can *I* do?". So, the next one is the one where I take everything I learned as a composition student and apply it to my own music. It's still going to have a folksy, distinctly-American feel to it - folksy does not equal just an acoustic guitar and a microphone.
The EP will be ready soon - I'll let you guys know. If you would like a copy or two at that time, just give me your address and I'll be sure to send 'em out.
There has also been progress made on the album, with six songs 90% completed or more. The idea all along was for me to release a 10+ song LP.
However, after hearing Dave Stagno's album (Daydream Radio - Making Friends), a new fire was lit under my ass.
Allow me to backtrack: Around the time when I started preparing songs for recording this album, I was still a composition student and was doing very intensive composition, mostly in the early 20th century tradition of atonality, but much more calculated; not "free". It was extremely tedious work, to say the least.
At the same time I was doing that, I started working on The Jazz Funeral material, and I think there was an unconscious effort to *not* do any sort of orchestration, or to bring in other instrumentalists, or to do anything that was too difficult. I stuck with mostly guitar/bass/drums, and that's the type of album I've got now - stripped down & raw, the songs in nearly their purest form.
But I have decided to release the album as is, right now. Six songs. An EP, not an LP. I had planned on having Discmakers print up a thousand of them, with fancy packaging and all; no more. We're going to take baby steps and take this slow.
No, the next one is going to be the big one.
I heard Dave's album, rich with wonderful orchestration (horns, woodwinds, strings, brass, accordion, and gobs of reverb), and it was so wonderful. I thought to myself, "If somebody with nearly NO knowledge of music and certainly no composition experience can come out with something so great, what can *I* do?". So, the next one is the one where I take everything I learned as a composition student and apply it to my own music. It's still going to have a folksy, distinctly-American feel to it - folksy does not equal just an acoustic guitar and a microphone.
The EP will be ready soon - I'll let you guys know. If you would like a copy or two at that time, just give me your address and I'll be sure to send 'em out.