– News –
by Modern Songbook Records | Oct 12, 2016 | Charlie's Blog, News
Over the summer my jazz band, Chaise Lounge, played in a classically beautiful barn in Vermont. I also heard a wonderful chamber music performance at a barn in Damariscotta, Maine. And now that I’m back in the DMV (a local nickname for the District of Columbia and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs) I’m looking forward to playing at the granddaddy of all barns, The Barns at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia. It must be the lack or parallel walls, or maybe the warm, non-reflective acoustic properties of the wood that makes playing at a properly retrofitted barn feel like playing inside a big guitar. I think it is wonderful that so many of these 18th- and 19th-century structures have been repurposed as music venues. Our Wolf Trap show is on Friday, October 14th. If you are in the neighborhood, please come by.
by Modern Songbook Records | Sep 28, 2016 | Charlie's Blog, News
I don’t have to tell you that the state of arts funding in much of the US is dismal. That’s why I feel particularly fortunate to live in Montgomery County, Maryland, a jurisdiction that supports both mainstream and esoteric artistic endeavors. I was recently awarded a county grant to write and produce a new chamber work for strings, harp and percussion. The piece I have in mind will incorporate Latin rhythms, in honor of the county’s booming population of immigrants from Central and South America.
by Modern Songbook Records | Aug 28, 2016 | Charlie's Blog, News
After eight months of work, I have just finished writing a big orchestral piece called Postcards from the West. Total running time, about 43 minutes. At first, the piece’s subject was pretty high-concept. I started out to write a four-movement work about the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and (don’t forget) plasma. But it was tough going. Maybe it comes from all the films I’ve scored, but I tend to work better when I have images in my head as I write. I started poking around the internet for pictures to inspire me and settled on four vintage postcards, each representing to me one of the four states of matter. Unexpectedly, all four images came from the American West, and my way forward became clear. Now the piece is finished, and I am hoping to find an orchestra to premiere this beast. I welcome all thoughts on this matter. Please contact me via postcard. If you’d like to hear or read the piece, you can find PDFs of the score and hear MP3s of a synth realization here.
by Modern Songbook Records | Jul 11, 2016 | Charlie's Blog, News
You never know where your next idea will come from. Not long ago, my jazz band, Chaise Lounge, was playing at the funky and highly regarded venue The Rooster’s Wife in Aberdeen, North Carolina. Much of the charm of this theater comes from its owner, Janet Kenworthy, who lodges and feeds touring bands with exquisite Southern hospitality. After sound check, Janet gave us directions to her house: “Walk out this door, turn right on High Street, then walk up to Blue Street and it’s right there.” “OK,” I repeated, “You’re at the corner of High and Blue.” There was a weird silence in the air, and after the perfect pause, our bass player, Pete Ostle, said meaningfully, “Man, I’ve been there.”
How could this not be the next song in what singer Marilyn Older refers to as our “scorned-woman-slumped-over-bar catalog”? When we got home, I put pencil to staff paper and came up with a new song named after the intersection—and the mental state. Here’s a video of us performing it last week at our favorite DC supper club, The Hamilton: “The Corner of High and Blue.”
by Modern Songbook Records | Jun 25, 2016 | Charlie's Blog, News
For the past few months I have been producing bits and pieces of country artist John Lilly’s State Song Project. He has written songs about twelve U.S. states and gotten a patchwork of grants and Kickstarter funds to cover the cost of recording and producing them. His songs seem to me to be the direct descendants of Hank Williams songs: forthright, tuneful, and lyrically solid. Last month we recorded “Mississippi” with the Chaise Lounge rhythm section, a blistering horn section, and three gospel backup singers. Next up will be his anthem to his home state, “The Hills of West Virginia.” When I first heard this song, it reminded me of a rather formal composition that might have been performed in a park gazebo in 1910. John was amazingly agreeable to my suggestion to orchestrate the piece for cornet, French horn, euphonium, tuba, background singers and a rhythm section of frailing banjo, guitar, and double bass. In a few weeks, we’ll go into the studio—and 100+ years back in time.
by Modern Songbook Records | Jun 11, 2016 | Charlie's Blog, News
Last week I produced a string quartet recording in Tel Aviv…from my home near Washington DC. I’d written the quartet as a sort of reverse overture for an upcoming film, An Open Door. The score will be for full orchestra, but this condensed ten-minute work contains all the major themes. Of course the compositional trick was to write idiomatic string parts for melodies that I’ve imagined for French horn or oboe, along with a full string section, brass, woodwinds, percussion section, etc. The practical trick—a kind of 21st century magic—was to oversee the recording without actually being there.
The onsite engineer and I managed the second trick via Facetime on our phones. Barack gave me a quick tour of the space and of each microphone he was using. I met the members of the quartet, with first violinist, Hagai Shaham translating between Hebrew and English. Maybe you have worked this way before, but it was my first experience with virtual audio production, and I’m now hooked. Though I unfortunately wasn’t able to travel to the session due to other obligations, I was able to get the performance I was hoping for from the quartet. Futurists have been predicting the advent of videophones since I was a little kid. I can’t believe the future is finally here.
Over the summer my jazz band, Chaise Lounge, played in a classically beautiful barn in Vermont. I also heard a wonderful chamber music performance at a barn in Damariscotta, Maine. And now that I’m back in the DMV (a local nickname for the District of Columbia and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs) I’m looking forward to playing at the granddaddy of all barns, The Barns at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia. It must be the lack or parallel walls, or maybe the warm, non-reflective acoustic properties of the wood that makes playing at a properly retrofitted barn feel like playing inside a big guitar. I think it is wonderful that so many of these 18th- and 19th-century structures have been repurposed as music venues. Our Wolf Trap show is on Friday, October 14th. If you are in the neighborhood, please come by.
After eight months of work, I have just finished writing a big orchestral piece called 
Last week I produced a string quartet recording in Tel Aviv…from my home near Washington DC. I’d written the quartet as a sort of reverse overture for an upcoming film,