Last Friday I had an amazing day recording with John Hébert and Keith Hall at Transient Recording in Chicago. We tracked eight of my new tunes for piano trio and I must admit I’m very happy with how it all went. John and Keith both played beautifully and vibe during the session was just great. Andrew Rathbun was tremendously helpful producing the session – sharing great musical suggestions and comments and generally keeping us on track. I’m giving it a week or two before I really listen to any rough mixes of what we did (to try to be a little more objective when I first hear it all!), but I’m really looking forward to the next steps.
We recorded:
The Fog – An uptempo, minor swinger in 3/4 meter.
Heroes – Dedicated to pianist Chick Corea. It borrows from his compositional style and is a fun adventure moving between single and double-time feels.
Insomnia – A haunting minor piece that features a free soundscape intro from John and Keith.
Nine Robins – A long-form composition in 5/4 meter that takes the listener (and the musicians) on quite a journey.
Quarantine – An uptempo swing tune with some challenging harmonic and rhythmic shifts.
June Blues (working title) – A fun blues form with a few extra bars and some unusual chords thrown in, all without sacrificing the blues feel.
Lost Time – A ballad I wrote for my mother.
Continuum – A straight-eighth piece that shifts in some unexpected places, and includes an incredible bass feature at the end from John.
Still to do: choose takes, mix, master, artwork, production, etc, etc…
Stay tuned for more information. The plan is to release this album on vinyl (as well as hi-res digital download) sometime in early 2022.
You can pre-order the music right here on my website.