‘SouTh ClOud’

/// my first experiment ///

Disclaimer:

/// you can’t see this video OR hear this song ANYWHERE ELSE !!! ///

Early in my career,

my goal was to be a side-man.

That is music speak for an accompanist or one who backs up the main act. Do you know who Taylor Swift’s drummer is? Me neither, they are a side-person, and I can assure you they are a bad-ass musician.

Anyway, it wasn’t until 2016 that I began toying with the idea of writing my own music and leading my own group.

I was at Temple University getting my master’s degree in ‘Jazz Studies’, and as a part of this program, we were assigned composition projects ALL THE TIME!

The ethos of the faculty seemed to be ‘demonstrate that you understand this concept by writing a song that uses it’.

Seems straightforward enough, and it was for a time.

Then I began to think outside of the box a little bit and think of how I could compose using the recording studio as a composition tool…

Fortunately, Temple University has an AMAZING recording studio that is super cheap for students to use (this is where my first album ‘Expedition’/’Chicory Root’ was recorded).

‘South Cloud’ is my first attempt at composing by remote recording.

Let me describe how the process worked…

The drummer and I improvised several minutes of music…then, at another session…the guitarist recorded to what we had done…then at another session the saxophonist recorded to that…and so on.

The big catch is that each person couldn’t hear what the others were doing, only what the drums and bass did.

Once everyone had recorded, I took all the files and cut them up to my liking.

The video came a few years later. I was writing a grant (which I didn’t get) that was loosely about the history of nuclear war. At the time the president of the US was in a pissing contest with N. Korea, bringing up fears dormant since the cold-war.

I found a bunch of footage from the US Library of Congress Archives and stitched it together.

This was all part of my presentation to the grant committee, and as I said, I didn’t get the grant, but I think the work is still relevant in these uncertain and newly frozen eastern frontiers…

/// credits ///

Matt Scarano - drums

Sean Markey - guitar

Chris Oatts - alto sax

Sean Bailey - tenor sax

Nicholas Krolak - bass/video