Even though I helped raise three spectacular daughters, I have never been drawn to the idea of playing children’s concerts. But earlier this year, I was commissioned to write a new string quintet for a regular Takoma Park, Maryland, kiddie event called “Peanut Butter & Jam Sessions.” My first instinct was to write something harmonically and melodically simple. But aside from it being a boring task, I realized that it probably wouldn’t work for this concert. The “Pixar” model of bi-level sensibilities is what kids—and their parents—expect now. So in the end I wrote a pretty interesting piece that had enough surprises in it for a three-year-old, enough musical meat in it to hopefully be satisfying for the adults in the audience, and just enough of a technical challenge for the quintet. The Takoma Ensemble string quintet also performed the third movement of my Three Completely Workable Perpetual Motion Devices. What fun! The players did an outstanding job with both pieces, and I discovered something about children’s concerts that hadn’t occurred to me (or that I had forgotten): music has an instant visceral impact on kids. Just hearing live music makes them fall on the floor—rolling and laughing. I’ve had some great nights in my life, but I can’t remember hearing my work played for a more appreciative crowd. A big thank-you to Maestro Vicki Gau for making this happen, and to the string quintet who took the work so seriously, while clearly enjoying the day.
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Noir premiere
A few weeks ago, my cello concerto Noir was premiered by soloist Lawrence Leviton and the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra. I wasn’t able to attend, but I heard the recordings and am proud and grateful the piece got such a fine welcome to the world. Lawrence did a stellar job, as did Maestro Pat Miles and the orchestra. (You can listen to a recording and view the score here.) For a composer, it’s never easy to get a new work premiered. Even harder: finding the second performance of a new piece. But I’d love to make that happen with this one.
Four Cities in concert
Usually if I am playing in public, I’m playing jazz on the piano, guitar, or accordion. I hardly ever have to play the exact notes of a piece—especially since there often aren’t exact notes to play, only chord changes. But on April 2, I will be performing a piece of mine called Four Cities with the wonderful violinist Teri Lazar. It is a four-movement suite for violin and piano that I wrote in 1997. It’s about 40 minutes long—and it is hard! I’ve been shedding for this concert for weeks already. I find it somewhat unnerving that Teri, because she is an excellent musician, will be expecting me to play precisely the notes I wrote. It is a reasonable expectation, to be sure. And if I were sitting in the audience, as I usually am when one of my pieces gets played, I would have the same expectation. But the prospect of sitting on the business side of the stage, playing a difficult piano part, and having the soloist fully prepared for me to nail it, is a little frightening. The movements are all named after cities: Fredericksburg, Virginia, where I spent my early years; Hollywood, California, where I’ve worked off and on for decades; Damariscotta, Maine, where my mom’s people are; and Memphis, Tennessee, the throbbing heart of American blues music…and a place I have never been. In some oblique way, this grouping makes perfect sense to me. Each of these places inspired a kind of sonic dreamscape—especially the one I’ve only dreamt about.
New Chaise Lounge album
Last month, my jazz band, Chaise Lounge, celebrated the release of our eighth album: The Lock & the Key. There are eleven cuts on it: nine originals and two covers. It took just about a year to make, and we are quite proud of it. I’m not sure it is appropriate to pick out favorite tracks, but so what? I have them. One is “The Sweet Ride Home,” for which our singer, Marilyn Older, wrote a gorgeous lyric about the moments just after a wonderful date. It’s driven by the perfect groove from drummer Tommy Barrick. The melody is ghosted a fourth down by Joe Jackson’s trombone. And the tutti ensemble section in the middle is the perfect, full-on Chaise Lounge statement. Another fave: “The Earl.” Our sax player, Gary Gregg, routinely stuns our live audiences with his ultra-melodic solos, and we captured a hot one on this track, named for one of Gary’s saxophone heroes, Earl Bostic. And I especially love the last song on the record, “I Grew a Rose,” because we tried to get a very retro Harry Belafonte sound, and I think we hit the nail on the head. In concert, we sometimes use male backing vocals as comic relief, but on this cut we are nothing but sincere. The artwork for the album is by Adriana Cordero.
Netherlands museum gig
This project was fun: I wrote the score for an animated film that will play for visitors to the Welvaren Museum in Amsterdam. When I score a feature film, I leave the sound effects to the pros, but in this case I was hired to do both score and “sfx,” in filmmaker lingo. Since it was a cartoon, the sounds I had to find or make were cartoonish—shoveling sounds, ker-plops, big cannons, little fireworks. I can’t imagine doing this job before digital editing. Thank goodness for ProTools. I will never again take the “boing” in a Tom & Jerry episode for granted.
Painted City
I recently had the pleasure of writing music for first-time filmmakers Caitlin Carroll and Brad Forder for their documentary on Washington DC’s murals, Painted City. It is an unusual look at the amazing artworks that appear on walls all over this beautiful city, as seen through the eyes of Perry Frank, a historian whose mission is to document as many of these as she can before they either self-destruct or are laid to waste via urban revitalization.
Two things made this a particularly fun project for me:
1. I got to use classic go-go grooves throughout the score. If you’re not familiar, go-go is a style of music unique to Washington DC that incorporates elements of funk, R&B and hip-hop. It hit its highest spot nationally with Chuck Brown’s 1978 hit “Bustin’ Loose,” but here in the DMV it’s still going strong.
2. I got to record Vince McCool, one of my favorite trumpet players. His playing is something of a throwback—he reminds me of Al Hirt, Jonah Jones and Louis Armstrong. I never miss a chance to record with him.
So many clarinets…
I re-arranged my symphonic composition, Postcards from the West, for symphonic wind ensemble. This is my first foray into the world of wind ensemble music—and I love it. It think this might be the most exciting area of composition that is happening the US right now. When I took on this arranging challenge, my first thought was “What will I do with all those clarinets?” But after a week spent (mentally) in the middle of that lovely bunch of reeds, I ended up thinking that maybe one can’t have too many clarinets. The fact that most wind ensembles exist in colleges means a composer can also feel free to write for extraordinarily large and weird percussion set-ups. Most colleges will have full concert marimbas, chimes, lots of timpani etc. These are elements that I am usually very careful about including in my orchestral writing, because they often require rentals and cartage fees that the orchestra must underwrite. I’ll never abandon orchestral composition, but I must admit that writing for wind ensemble felt liberating in a way. I feel certain I’ll turn to it again soon. If you’re curious, you can find the score and synth realizations here.
The dividing line
I don’t teach for a living and I’m not a student (except in the interest of improving my chili recipe), but I still organize my life in semesters. Maybe you do too. For me, it’s a good way to divide up the year. One 12- to 14-week period seems to be just enough time to write one large(ish) piece of music, score a few films, write two or three songs for my jazz band, and acquire perhaps one new skill. This semester, that new skill was learning to play the ukulele. I had been hearing the Hawaiian instrument on the radio and TV a lot, and now I have this wonderful sound in my quiver of musical arrows. Of course, if I need a master uke player for a recording, I will still hire one, but for a few chords in a pinch, I’ll do. If you divide your years the way I do, I hope you had a fruitful fall semester and that you’ve got big plans for the spring.
Retablos
One of my favorite museums is the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, which features amazing works by self-taught artists. Years ago, I brought a bit of that museum home (via its gift shop) in the form of several retablos. These are paintings, mostly from Mexico, each commissioned by someone who has had a brush with death and wants to honor the saint who saved them—often the Virgin of Guadalupe. Their messages are both dramatic and heartfelt.
I recently received a grant to write and record a piece for strings, harp, and percussion with Latin rhythms. When I sat down to write, I took inspiration from these moments of danger on my walls—and from these life-saving saints. I’m pleased to say that the piece is now written. Naturally, I called it Retablos. It’s a 20-minute work in three movements, which are called “Songo,” “Fandango,” and “Cumbia.”
The most challenging aspect of this piece, for me, was the dialog between the harp and the vibraphone. My worry was that the sound and the effect of the two instruments was too similar in timbre and likely to get lost in each other’s sonorities. Luckily, I was able to figure out a way to use that to my advantage. I gave the vibes and the harp a duet section in the middle of each of the movements. I feel very fortunate that there is already a performance planned for this work. The redoubtable David Fanning, conductor of the National String Symphonia, has decided to premiere Retablos in 2017. If you’d like to hear it in the meantime, you can find a synth version, along with PDFs of the score, here.
Rethinking Christmas carols
I heard my first Christmas carol of the year on the speakers at Home Depot before Thanksgiving. Ugh, thought I. But I am probably like a lot of us…conflicted about these chestnuts. If you examine the traditional carols one by one, they are usually pretty good hymns—well crafted and perfectly seasonal. Too bad we get so sick of them. And yet we need them, and not just to make a living as musicians during the season the public wants to hear them. We need them for how they connect us through the years, both with our younger selves and with carolers who have gone before. This week, my band Chaise Lounge will perform our annual Christmas show, with tunes from our Christmas album. One song we always play is “Good King Wenceslas.” It is a sci-fi-tale of the Duke of Bohemia in the 13th century, who leaves heated footprints in the snow as he travels on foot to give alms to a peasant. The melody might be Finnish from the 1600’s. The version we usually sing dates from the mid-19th century. What is astonishing to me is how the fiery silver nugget of wonder in this song burns its way through the centuries to have fresh meaning every time it’s sung. That is some powerful Christmas hoodoo, my friend. If you’re in the DC area, I hope you’ll consider coming to our show at Blues Alley. And if you’re by chance planning a holiday pops concert for a future season, drop me a line and I can tell you about our orchestral arrangements.