iNflueNces

/// part 2: Jazz ///

Jazz is probably the biggest influence on my music … that makes sense since the biggest throughline in my body of work is improvisation itself … however, improvisation doesn’t explicitly equal jazz …

to me, jazz really means bebop and the various genres of it’s lineage … in my humble opinion, the further you get from bebop, the less ‘jazz’ it is … now I know that is a controversial thing to say, but it’s just my opinion, not really based on fact, rather feeling.

My first album ‘Chicory Root’ is my only truly ‘jazz’ album (again just my opinion). I wrote it while in grad school at Temple University, where I was immersed in the bebop tradition. While there, I studied with bassist David Wong, who gave me insights into the great pianist Hank Jones, who Dave played with extensively.

Below is a concert of Dave playing with the legendary pianist.

/// ‘Jonesin’ ///

My song ‘Jonesin’ is a direct result of my study of Hank Jones. I took various lines from Jones’ solos and cobbled them together into a blues. I was really drawn to his elegance of phrase and light touch.

Below is the album version of ‘Chicory Root’, recorded at Temple University’s recording studio !

/// live ! ///

A few years after recording the ‘Chicory Root’ album, I starting performing live more with my own band. This is what directly led to the recording of ‘Voice = Power’.

Below is video from one of the very first performances we did. This concert took place several months before recording ‘Voice = Power’ at the place we ended up recording it ! The very first song is ‘Jonesin’ … followed by ‘Stargazer’ and ‘3’ … all found on the ‘Chicory Root’ album !