9.) Time After Time

The ninth song of the 24 Standards Project is Time After Time by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne.  This is one that I’ve played for a long time.  I love the Sinatra and the Chet Baker recordings.  But best of all I love the Keith Jarrett Trio Live At The Blue Note recording.  That box set is probably the most influential jazz music for me.  I know it backward and forward.  I think it was the first large collection I bought.  I remember buying it at Best Buy when I was a senior in high school - a six CD set - but one of the discs was missing!  They let me return it after some convincing by my girlfriend at the time.  But shortly after that I picked it up at the Electric Fetus record store in Minneapolis.  I loved buying CDs there because they smelled good….  They burned incense in there or something and the stuff you bought there kept that scent for years.  Maybe it was a clever marketing trick.  Anyway, that box set was my jam, and I love it more than ever.  I don’t put it on often anymore, but when I do it seems to get better and better.  It’s aged well.  

My familiarity with Time After Time actually made it more difficult to arrange.  I just wanted to play it instead of slow down and work out some stuff.  And since Keith’s recording is spontaneously arranged - so damn beautifully I might add - I just wanted to do the same.  Finally I managed to etch something out little by little.  It’s also more challenging for me to do medium or fast songs as opposed to ballads, because you have to write less - at least that’s what I think sounds best.  I ended up using a certain device quite a bit in my arrangement - something that I’ve heard Hank Jones do a lot, which is melodic fills that are played in octaves.  It seems like octaves would give it too much weight, and it seems like one could do better by harmonizing the line instead, but nevertheless I think it’s nice and adds a classic touch.  When I started doing some takes and listening back, I decided that I best enjoyed the sections of the solo for which I played a stride groove, so I decided to do that more and more - I went for the “feel” at let everything else take a back seat.  I hope you enjoy it.