Final Reflections

Well here we are.  Another home recording internet sharing project completed.  Usually the end of a project is bittersweet, and sure there is some bittersweetness this time too, but largely I feel relieved that it’s over, even though I loved the music throughout the project. 

This was a challenging project for me.  It was challenging in task, but also in regard to the rest of life.  I’ve written a lot about that on this blog during the course of the project and I won’t elaborate too much on it here.   But there were long stretches of time in which I didn’t work on the project.  It took nearly three years to finish.  The parameters I set allowed for such lapses in work, since there wasn’t a time requirement (no weekly, or monthly publishing goal), the rules were just simply for me to do 24 of these things.   

Was this good or bad?  Sometimes the forcing nature of previous projects was good.  Those forced deadlines probably pushed me into new territory.   Being forced to carry on when I was sick of the subject probably led me to some unusual creative choices in the work.   That didn’t happen so much this time.  This time if I was sick of it, I was able to take time off.  I dedicated a lot of time to gardening, farming, and other homesteading activities, time that likely would have been spent on the project if I were still living in NYC.  But just so you know, I really love my life with all these extra musical endeavors.   It’s really made a difference in my happiness.  

Task-wise, this project was also more demanding.  I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted these arrangements to sound like, and they were fairly elaborate.   Whereas the content of previous projects featuring original compositions, or improvisations could often be minimal and done quickly if needed.   Learning these arrangements well took some time, but I felt it was necessary to do that and memorize them, if they were going to benefit me the most.   

Getting a satisfactory recording was also challenging.  Ah the mental games...the feeling when you played the arrangement correctly on the way in, played a tolerable solo, then have to play the arrangement well again on the way out, so as to not ruin the take.  That was fun.   

I happy to say that I think the process of the 24 Standards project benefited my playing a lot.   When I sit down and improvise an arrangement, there’s a lot more ideas for me to draw upon.  It was nice to operate in the world of carefully-worked-out jazz piano arrangements, a world that I hadn’t really spent much time in at all.  

Also, I feel quite proud of physical end product of this project.   When I listen back to these arrangements I think they make up a solid body of work.  I like what I came up for them.  I would like to concertize these arrangements sometime.  But that would be difficult, like doing a full-length classical program.   Perhaps if I had had steady solo piano gigs during the project, I would have been able to keep them all under my fingers.  But now it would be a pretty monumental task to prepare them all.  Maybe someday.  I also think it would be fun to somehow publish the written sheet music.  Maybe someday. 

Generally speaking I’m not crazy about my improvised solos on these recordings.  It’s really challenging for me to play nice, honest lines when covering all the bases (basses!).   I’m much better at playing what I hear in my head when playing with a band, at least on standards.  I’m not sure how much you’ll hear of that struggle in the recordings.  Actually the sound of the struggle fades as I listen to each recording more - the notes I played become the “right” ones over time as I get used to hearing them.  

Overall I think the project led to a nice a nice body of work and I think I learned a lot doing it.   If you’d like to enjoy it in its entirety, the blog will remain, and there is also a YouTube playlist of all the recordings.  

Some favorite songs of mine from the project are Ev’rytime We Say Goodbye, If I Loved You, and The Boy Next Door.   I like them all, but those are standout songs to me.  All of those were tunes I hadn’t played before.  

I’d like to thank all of you who listened, read, watched, and offered feedback.  And I’m thankful for the platforms and technology that make it possible for me to so easily document and share another project like this.  

At this time I will not be announcing another project.  I have some ideas, but I also have some other life projects in the works.  I would like to get back to composing some more original music.  We’ll see what happens there.  This time of year, particularly in 2019, it seems kind of inconceivable to start a new project, or even sit down at the piano for a considerable length of time.  Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most I guess. 

With gratitude,

Jesse

24.) I Get Along Without You Very Well

This is it!  The final arrangement for the 24 Standards project is of the song I Get Along Without You Very Well by none other than Hoagy Carmichael.   I first got to know this song from the recording by vocalist Kurt Elling.  This song wasn't on my list, but while I was away in Switzerland it suddenly popped into my head.  I wrote the arrangement in Switzerland - it seemed to fit well, being 4000 away from my wife.  If you don't know the lyrics of this song, the gist is, "I get along without you very well, except when 'this' and 'that'...."   Basically the narrator doesn't get along without her very well at all.  So it was fitting.

I really love the song.  The harmony of the A sections was a little challenging, because it was so simple and repetitive.  It was somewhat difficult to find creative things to for the arrangement, and also challenging during the solo for the same reason.  But I think it came out well.  I hope you enjoy it.  I will follow this post with a post of final reflections, probably in a few days.  Thanks for listening.

23.) Moon River

Hello there.   The penultimate recording for the 24 Standards project is of the song Moon River by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.  I've always liked this song, but never really learned it before now.

I had this arrangement finished for awhile, had it learned, but got really busy and had to set it aside for awhile.  Ah, life.  But I am fresh back from two weeks of a residency in the Swiss Alps.  I had plenty of time to practice it, and I was performing for three hours every evening.  It really makes a difference.  Despite its flaws (I'll probably never reach my ideal standard of a performance/recording), this recording was far easier to finish after playing that much for a couple weeks.  My ear to hand connection is much better when I've been playing a lot.

One thing I was thinking about as I edited the video is the display of emotion that a performer does or does not show.   As you'll see, my big balding head moves around a lot when I play, and is only exacerbated by my camera angle.  I'm almost completely unaware of these movements when I play.   Some performers, such as Keith Jarrett, show a lot of emotion through movements, facial expressions, and vocalizations.  Others are dead still, and show only complete relaxation of the face - classical pianist Frederic Chiu has many moments of stillness.  And I think both are very effective.  I'd love to be still sometimes, but, at least nowadays, I'm a bobbler and a scowler, and a sometimes sing-along-er.  Somehow I think these idiosyncrasies help me get out what I'm trying to get out.  I remember seeing one or two videos by Hal Galper (pianist and jazz educator) who is insistent that students show no emotional reactions, in the form of movements, facial expressions, and vocalizations, to their playing.   I think that my own emotional responses cause me to flub notes sometimes.  There are some moments where I hit the cracks in the solo on Moon River, which probably could be avoided with some checks on my emotional response.  But it would be a real challenge for me to be still - as I mentioned above, I'm only mildly aware of my movements while playing.  And I'm not sure it's worth it.  I tend to like seeing emotional reactions, especially in improvisors.

This arrangement makes some significant nods to one of the primary influences of this project, pianist Bill Carrothers.  You could say my introduction, filled with augmented and diminished chords, is directly influenced by Bill's treatment of In The Wee Small Hours, from his After Hours record.  Augmented and diminished chords are rather moon-like aren't they?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Moon River and are not too distracted by my big dumb head.

One more to go!!!

22.) Star Eyes

One of my main objectives in this project has been to be true to the melody and the lyrics of the songs I've chosen.  That means that I learn the words even though I'm not singing, and I try to phrase the melody in a way that makes sense with the lyrics.  However, with Star Eyes by Gene de Paul and Don Raye, I don't think I held up that objective so much.  The reason for this is that I had a preconceived idea of the rhythmic feel and tempo I wanted to use, which I thought would fit well into the whole project, but didn't fit so well with the lyrics.  Namely, I wanted to do this tune in a straight eighth feel, like it has often been done by many instrumentalists over the hears.  We used to call it a Latin feel.  I don't know, do we still call it that?  I hadn't done anything with this rhythm feel yet in the project, so I thought it would be a nice change.  And it would provide a little contrast in the body of the recordings, should you decide to listen to them all as a set.  (I've created a 24 Standards YouTube playlist so you can do just that if you want to.)   In fact, most people go to a swing feel on the bridge and the last four bars of the tune, but I felt like keeping the Latin feel throughout the tune so as to maximize the contrast.   There are vocal recordings of the tune that have nice and natural phrasing, but they are slower.  If I had mimicked them, I would have missed out on what drew me to the song to begin with - the contrasting rhythmic feel and tempo.

As you may have noticed, this project has been very ballad heavy.  While I didn't set out to do a project of mostly ballads, I've found them quite a bit nicer to work with - I've got a lot more time in each measure to put it counter melodies and other arrangement ideas.  A challenge when doing faster tunes is hearing what I'm writing at the faster tempo.  I have to simplify.  I think the faster the tempo, the simpler one must be.  Having attempted to keep that in mind for Star Eyes, I still think it sounds a little busy.  Keeping it much simpler would seem a little pointless.  I might as well just improvise an arrangement instead.  This is a big reason for the project being dominated by slow and medium songs.  That and the fact that I just don't like playing fast tunes, especially solo piano.

I had fun working on this one.  Only two more to go!

Technical note:  There is a weird humming feedback on the recording when certain notes and chords are played.  I think it might have had to do with the mic placement.  It sucks, but I didn't want to throw the take out for that reason.  Besides most of you will probably listen to it through your super high fidelity* smart telephone speakers and not notice it.  I tried EQing it out, but I don't know too much of what I'm doing there.  Apologies for the dumb feedback.  

*sarcasm

21.) I Should Care

Wooowhee has it been a long time since I posted an arrangment!  Thanks for your patience.  I felt like I had a good productive run on the project last winter.  And then something happened called The Growing Season.  April came and it was just time to get out there and plant, and then tend to those plantings, and then and then.   I had a nice summer in the garden and at Common Ground Farm, where I worked part time for my second season.

This arrangement actually came in a spurt right in the middle of the season, back in July.  I had had the hankering to compose some original music, but I felt like I needed to finish this project.  So I went to work.  I actually learned it too, but then August happened, some traveling, some day trips (epic swim holes!), and anyway, here we are.  Purtnear October and I'm just finishing it.  I'm not upset that it took this long.  I've come to accept that my life is pretty broadly focused these days, and I know I can get this project done eventually.

The song here is I Should Care by Alex Stordahl, Paul Weston, and Sammy Cahn.  I have three favorite recordings of this tune.  Thelonious Monk did a solo version that was slow and rubato, from the album Thelonious Himself.  I listened to it regularly back in college, and I decided to mimic his rubato feel.  Another favorite is by the Bill Evans Trio on the album How My Heart Sings.  I really love the phrasing in Bill's solo on that record.  I can only hope that it had some impact on my improvisation here.  I also love the early Sinatra recording - no surprise there!

Anyway, welcome back to 24 Standards.  Things should get more regular now that it's Autumn.  Thanks for listening.  Onto the next one....

20.) Sweet Lorraine

Song number twenty is Sweet Lorraine by Cliff Burwell and Mitchell Parish.  This is a song I've always liked, but never played.  I was most familiar with the Hank Jones recording, from his record Tip Toe Tap Dance.   That record was recommended to me years ago when I took a lesson with Geoffrey Keezer.  This was back when I was in Eau Claire, WI.  Geoffrey is from Eau Claire and his dad was my percussion teacher.  Tip Toe Tap Dance is great.  Actually I transcribed It's Me Oh Lord from that album and recorded it for one my 12 Films.

Sweet Lorraine is an old sounding song - it reminds me of Fats Waller.  My goal in arranging was to honor that sound, but be myself too, and to keep the melody lyrical.

The arrangement was done for awhile, however I had a little life detour when it came to getting the recording done.  My grandpa Charlie passed away on Thursday March 29.   He was in hospice care from about March 23 I think.  Since it was my Spring break, I decided to go to MN for the week.  I was able to see grandpa while he was still alive, although he was zonked out on morphine.  Still it was nice to be with family for that week.  My grandpa and grandma had five kids, my dad being the oldest, and the family is really close.  In fact I'm the only one of all the cousins that isn't still living in MN.  It's difficult to live far away from them.  It's great to see everyone when I go back, but I always feel like I've missed out on what's happening.  I feel like an appendage, if that makes sense.  We had a nice family reunion at my brother-in-laws micro brewery Back Channel Brewing Co, the day after grandpa passed.  I was also able to spend a lot of quality time with my immediate family, including a stay at down at Dream Acres, the off-grid homestead of my brother, sister-in-law, and niece and nephew.  We made maple syrup!   We boiled 150 gallons of sap, which yielded just over 4 gallons of finished maple syrup.  It was so cool to experience that and just hang out with them.  They're special people.

I tried and tried, but I just couldn't get a decent take recorded of Sweet Lorraine before I left for that trip.   So I had to keep it under my fingers while I was in MN, and I played it at least once a day there.  So my family is primed for this recording I guess.  When I returned home I had a sudden shitstorm of gardening to do, I guess since I missed Spring break time at home.  Mainly it was that I had a shipment of bareroot fruit shrubs, asparagus crowns, and rhubarb root that arrived and they had to be put into the ground as soon as possible.  Let me tell you, planting asparagus ain't a walk in the park - good thing it will produce for twenty years to more!

Finally after I got those plants in on Tuesday and Wednesday, I was ready to get back on the recording horse, so to speak.  This recording was a struggle.  I was doing takes for several days.  There were a lot of mind games going on - a little "red light syndrome".   I think though, that the struggle is mainly due to the fact that my standards have gone up.  I'm not content with any significant "clams" in my performance, or any really off-sounding phrases in my improvised solo.  It's improv, so I shouldn't really care too much.  But again, I'm looking to satisfy the grandmothers with my playing of the melodies of these tunes, and I don't want them to suffer through any weird improvisation.  I want the solos to fit the vibe and be just as lyrical as the song itself if possible.  And I don't have the ability to edit these recordings - to take a solo from one take and melody from another, for example.  So I've got to get a good take all the way through.  I tend to freak out a bit when I've played a good clean melody and solo, then I've got to play my arrangement again for the out head without messing up too badly.  It is very good practice.  As long as I keep that perspective, it's all good.  This performance isn't perfect, but I thought it had some nice things going on, so...here it is.   Four more to go!

19.) But Beautiful

Song number 19 is But Beautiful by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke.  I knew this song from the Tony Bennett / Bill Evans duo album and as the title track of a great Nancy Wilson album.  I like the tune because of the thematic nature of the melody - the same phrase repeated three times at higher pitch levels.  And there are also these nice pauses in the song..."but beautiful...".

One of my previous projects was The Messiaen Project, in which I composed, recorded, and posted one song a week using the techniques of the French composer Olivier Messiaen.  This arrangment of But Beautiful became a little Messiaen/Standards mashup.  It started out with a desire to create some beautiful dissonance on the second half of the tune - the thematic part I was describing above.  Each time the melody reaches the repeated high note of the phrase, I was hearing some kind of increasingly dissonant sound.  I realized it was a diminished sound I was looking for.  So the first one is a diminished major seventh chord.  The second one is a double diminished chord - two diminished seventh chords stacked on top of each other.  The third one is a...wait for it... a triple diminished!  Whooooo!  I can hear your minds exploding.  When you stack three diminished seventh chords on top of one another, you end up with all twelve tones of the chromatic scale.  The way I did it was to play a double diminished on beat one, and then add the 3rd diminished chord on beat two.  It's dense and dissonant, but it quickly resolves to a chunky major seventh chord, hopefully providing you with some relief.

Messiaen made extensive use of the diminished scale, also known as the octatonic scale, and what he called "the second mode of limited transposition".  After making use of these diminished chords on the second half of the arrangement, as I described above, I thought it would be fun to try to incorporate diminished harmony elsewhere into the arrangement.  I used it in the introduction, at the end, and mainly in the long pauses of the melody, which happen after the lyric "but beautiful".

[I realize this post is getting pretty heady.  Especially if you're not familiar with the song.  Help me out and have a listen to the Tony Bennett / Bill Evans recording.  And for a Messiaen reference I'd recommend the Vignt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus]

To my ears Messiaen's music, particularly his use of the diminished scale, is full of really bright, beautiful, shimmering, dissonance.  In context that dissonance is not abrasive at all.  He was somehow able to take us along and make us believe.  However, interspersing the diminished harmony with regular major harmony, may or may not be a little weird.  It's difficult when I'm working on these to keep a sense of objectivity.  The objectivity is there the first couple times I try something.  After that it slowly dissipates.  By the time I'm getting some decent takes recorded it's completely gone.  It's really fun to come back and listen to these recordings a month later - the objectivity returns by then.  For now, you can be my objective listener and decide for yourself if it works or not.  In the meantime, I'll start arranging the next one.  Five more to go!  Thanks for listening!



P.S.  Here's the youtube playlist for all the Standards I've uploaded to YouTube!

18.) Blame It On My Youth

Number 18 is Blame It On My Youth by Oscar Levant and Edward Heyman.  This one really goes back to the origin of the project in a couple ways.

This recording is the project's tribute to Keith Jarrett.  It didn't start out that way however.  I was familiar with many of Keith's recordings of the song, but I went about my usual business of finding some vocal recordings to check out.  The one I latched onto most was Frank Sinatra from the album Close To You.  That album and Bill Carrothers' album After Hours where kind of the inspiration for the whole 24 Standards Project.  I was listening to them a lot when I came with the idea.  Ironically, Bill is one of the pianists who improvises arrangements.  But the stuff he was doing was so inspiring.  I knew I wouldn't be able to improvise arrangements on that level, so I began working on writing some out, which is how it all began.

The other way that it goes back to the origin is with Keith Jarrett.  Plainly stated, he is my favorite musician.  He's one of the first jazz pianist I got into.  And it was his Standards Trio records that I heard first and grew to love.  A little side story:  I remember buying the Keith Jarrett Trio Complete Live at the Blue Note 6 CD box set at Best Buy.  I think I was senior in high school.  I brought home and began listening, only to find that one of the discs was missing!  How tragic.  My girlfriend at the time convinced Best Buy to let me return it.  Eventually I picked it up again at the Electric Fetus - a cool independent record store in Minneapolis.  I loved buying CDs there because of how they smelled.  They packed them with incense sticks or something.  And their box sets contain all the discs!

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, Keith Jarrett is also one of those pianists that improvises his arrangements - pulling them out of the air.   You can hear it, and I've also read several interviews of him explaining it.  I was influenced by that early on, and was trying to do that same whenever I played standards.  And it hadn't really occurred to me early on how arranging was such an important part of the jazz piano tradition.  So in a way, this project is a response to my trying to imitate Keith for so many years.  So here we are.  

This arrangement started as the others.  I was thinking vocally when I figured out how I'd do the melody.  But a couple of melodic embellishments popped into my head as I got to the second half of the tune.  I didn't think anything of them at first, but after a while they started sounding a lot like Keith.  So I went and listened to his recording of the tune on the album The Melody at Night With You, and sure enough one of my embellishements was almost an exact copy of what Keith played.  At first I thought shouldn't do it.  But then I thought, eh, why not - this is an educational project.  No harm in quoting my favorite pianist.

Jazz is basically imitation.  You copy your heroes.  Usually though you want to combine enough of your jazz heroes together, plus the other styles of music you like, and your own life experience, so that any one influence is somewhat hidden, or at least the lines are blurred.  I don't want to remake a Keith record.  We already have his.

But this was just one phrase.   So I went ahead and left it in.  However, listening to The Melody At Night With You recording infected me with a vamp ending.  When I started practicing my arrangement, I just had to go to that vamp.  At that point it became some pretty straight up Keith imitation.  A little more than I really feel comfortable putting out in the world.  But at the same time, I'm really interested in honesty, and I'm interested in sharing the "alone in the practice room" version of my music.  Not that I want to share my practicing, but rather I want to share how, when the feeling is right, I really let myself go when I'm alone.  And how yes, sometimes at home I'll play a vamps just like Keith's for a long time.  And damn it feels good - serious nourishment!

Nourishment from playing music is something I believe in.  Sometimes it feels nourishing to play a concert.  But my most nourishing musical moments have happened at home by myself.  And those moments are the best.  The ability to have such moments is what I hope to pass on to all my piano students.

17.) Long Ago and Far Away

Song number 17 is Long Ago and Far Away by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin.  It is as far back as I go with Standards, as it is the first one I ever learned to play when I switched to a jazz piano teacher.  It was the beginning, learning what an F major seventh chord is for example, and at that time it was difficult to learn how to voice enough chords to play a song.  So once I got this one, I played it every day for probably at least 6 months.  I wonder if my parents remember it.  At the time I think they questioned my progress because of how long I played this song.  Fortunately I've learned a lot since then, so hopefully they will like this current version.  

There is no shortage of recordings of Long Ago and Far Away.  For some reason I was drawn to the Teddy Wilson recording when I began my arrangement.  I think people like to play the tune because of the sudden shift from F major to Ab major.  At least that's why I like it.  Tonal shifts like this might be characteristic of Jerome Kern.  I'd have to know why more tunes to say this with accuracy, but both his The Song Is You (recorded earlier in this project), and All The Things You Are (an extremely popular song for jazz musicians to play) contain modulations like this.  After I finished my arrangement and began practicing it, it occurred to me to play around with this tonal shift up a minor third in the solo section.  So every 16 measure I modulate up a minor third without preparing the modulation, meaning I don't play a ii-V or something similar to prepare the new key, I just go there.  (Sorry non-musicians, I realize this post has gotten a little heady.)  It was fun to play, but it also kept me on my toes.  

16.) The Christmas Waltz

Song number 16 is The Christmas Waltz by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne.  This song was written for Frank Sinatra and appears on three of his Christmas albums.  I came to enjoy the song last year during the holiday season.  

I'm a little ambivalent about including a Christmas song in the collection, but I have a few reasons for validating it.  First, the song is written by Cahn and Styne who were a famous songwriting team who wrote a lot of songs that I love and are standards hands down, such as I Fall In Love Too Easily and Time After Time.  So the composers fit the bill.  

Second, Christmas music has always been special music for me.  I not one of those who find it annoying,  especially the classic albums.  This time of year was magical when I was a kid.  And it probably was the most important time for music in our household.  It was played constantly from Thanksgiving until New Years, and it brought us a lot of cheer.  Standout Christmas albums from when I was a kid are The Beach Boys Christmas, John Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas, and the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas.  Now when I hear these albums they bring me back to childhood memories.  They make December feel a little more like it used to - exciting instead of busy as heck.

I worry a little that listeners might be annoyed to hear a Christmas song at other times of year, since it will be placed on an album of all different stuff.  But this song is not one of those Christmas songs like Rudolph or Jingle Bells that everybody recognizes instantly although it has been pretty widely recorded.  And for those that do know it well, my hope is that it will be a little reminder of winter when you hear it in July.  I've come enjoy these kind of seasonal reminders. 

In any case, I think it's a nice song.  I hope you enjoy it in this holiday season and beyond.  Happy Holidays!

15.) If I Loved You

This song is really beautiful.  I like it a lot.  It's from the musical Carousel by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.  I just heard the early Sinatra recording a couple months ago and I knew right then that I wanted to do the song for the project.  Listening out of context of the show, it's a sad beautiful song.

If I loved you

Time and again I would try to say

All I'd want you to know.

If I love you

Words wouldn't come in an easy way

'Round in circles I'd go. 

Longing to tell you

But afraid to try

I'd let my golden chances pass me by

Soon you'd leave me.

Off you would go in the mist of day.

Never, never to know

How I'd love you,

If I loved you.   

However, in context it's not so sad.  Both the female and male characters sing it to one another and then they totally start making out afterward.  So they do love each other, but they're not ready to admit or announce their love for each other yet.  I haven't seen the whole show but I was happy to see the scene that features this song on youtube.  

The majority of this arrangement was written while I was in Vals, Switzerland.  I was playing at the 7132 Hotel for a couple weeks.  It was a really beautiful place, and really nice to have a break from my usual life.  It was a retreat.  There is a lot one must do to keep a house.  But I have also become what one could call a homesteader.  I am very interested in having meaningful connections to my environment, land (even if only a 1/5 acre lot), and especially my food.  So in addition to the usual cooking, cleaning, maintenance, etc, I spend many hours doing things like gardening, chicken-keeping, fermenting, preserving, and farming.  I am a do-it-yourselfer; a jack of all trades.  And I love that.  But let me tell you, it cuts into your artistic time.  In Vals, I couldn't do any of those things.  I was miles away from my kitchen and my yard.  Suddenly confronted with an abundance of time, I first didn't know what to do with myself.  Pretty quickly I established a nice routine.  After breakfast, I'd do some chi kung, some mediation, some journaling, and some practicing.  After lunch I'd take a nice walk in the mountains, soak in the thermal baths for which the area is famous, practice a little more, then I'd play the gig in the evening.  I was able to write this entire arrangement of If I Loved You, memorize it, and finish the next arrangement as well.  

Coming back to regular life, it became even more obvious just how much time the necessities and the homesteading things take.  But I have to say, I wouldn't have it any other way.  I'm really happy with the path I'm on these days - I find a lot of meaning in it.  And it's okay with me that this project is taking so much longer than I originally anticipated.  

14.) Peg O' My Heart

Hello.  Long time no post.  I had a lovely summer, which consisted of a lot of farming, gardening, swimming, chicken observing, and not so much standards and piano.  I needed a break.  I had begun working on this one right after Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most was posted in June, but I only worked on it very sparsely throughout the summer.  I returned to more serious work on the project in October, and now I'm pleased to present Peg O' My Heart by Fred Fisher and Alfred Bryan.

Jazzers don't seem to know this tune.  The only real jazz recording of it is by the Lester Young Trio, and there is a composed phrase in it that really sounds like it was improvised by Lester.  It seems like a natural tune for him, and it's surprising that other jazz players didn't follow his lead and record their own versions.  I found out about the tune from Dan, a student of mine in Beacon.  He had an arrangement in one of his books, and he told me all about the tune and recordings of it by the Harmonicats among others. I liked the tune, and it's short form, which I welcomed especially after the long-ass Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most.  Even the title of that one is soooo long.

I attempted a lot of walking 10ths in both the arrangement and the improvised solo.  I love the sound of them.  I had worked on them a bit with Garry Dial at the Manhattan School of Music.  However, they are damn challenging to play.  For those unfamiliar with walking 10ths, they are a series of large spanning stretches in the left hand.  Listen to Teddy Wilson for some amazing walking 10ths.   I can barely reach many of them.  And some I have to roll (playing one note just before the other).   I found that they took a lot of concentration to pull off.  So as I began doing takes and listening back, it was clear that my right hand improvisation suffered when I was playing the 10ths because they required too much focus.  It got a little better, but I ended up doing a lot less of them in the end, just so I could pay more attention to the melodic line.  You can hear me fumble around with them at times.  Damn walking 10ths.

Anyway.  This is Peg O' My Heart.  Enjoy.

13.) Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

Lucky number thirteen!  Let me tell you, finishing this song can really hang you up the most!  This was a difficult one to get done.  It's long and repetitive, but with little differences in those repetitions. It was difficult to memorize, and my focus has been all over the place lately anyway.  Life!  Spring!  

The song is Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most by Fred Landesman and Tommy Wolf.  This song goes back to my Manhattan School of Music days when I performed it with vocalist and pianist Brenda Earle.  I checked out various recordings of it - Ella Fitzgerald, and check out my pal Randy Ingram's recent recording! - but I still hear Brenda's voice when I play it.  I like this song.  It's got some pretty parallel harmony - similar to Keith Jarrett's version of In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning from the Blue Note recordings, which basically kills me and has always killed me.  And the song has an enjoyable "modulation fake out" coming out of the bridge into the last A section.

When I was growing up in MN, summer was the best season.  Spring was second best.  But after moving to NY, back in 2002, Fall became second best.  I think it's because I moved to the city in the Fall to start my master's program at MSM.  It was such an exciting time.  Spring however became a reminder of probably the scariest transition of my life - that of finishing my degree and entering the real world in NYC.   Crappy jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, unsure if my girlfriend really liked me or not (happy to report that we'll be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary this July!).   Further more, for many years Spring was always the end of getting paid as my piano students all left for the summer.  There was always this feeling of "how the hell am I going to make it until Fall financially?"  Fall was a relief.  Cooler temperatures, and the return of the my students.   Spring is getting better though.  I love Spring activities, and money isn't quite as much of a problem as it used to be.   But there remains an occasional worried lump in my throat during Springtime.  It is true that Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most.  

12.) The Song Is You

The Song Is You is a song I've known for awhile.  I've always liked the tune and the harmony - notably the sound of the modulation coming out of the bridge.  But this tune has always kicked my butt.  It was always difficult for me to improvise on these chords.  So I thought it was worth it to include in the 24 Standards project, you know to tackle the challenge and what not.

Probably what made it difficult for me all those years was that it's often fast.  I best know the Keith Jarrett Trio recording from the album Still Live and they play it very damn fast.  Charlie Parker played it pretty fast too.  For me, improvising at a fast tempo forces me to fall back on rehearsed patterns that my hand and ear know.  I think it's rare to find a musician who can really hear and execute new ideas at burning tempos (Keith is one of them).   This has always caused me to dislike playing fast tempos - which has actually been an issue for my whole career.  I always have an abundance of slow material and I usually have to write a lot before anything fast comes out.  Fast music is overrated, okay.

And when you start checking out these songs historically, with the lyrics in heavy consideration, those fast tempos don't make a lot of sense anyway.  So in returning to The Song Is You, I took the tempo down a bit.   There were a couple recordings that I liked a lot - one was the Frank Sinatra / Tommy Dorsey recording.  (Sorry if this is getting predictable and boring - perhaps I should have done this project exclusively based on the Sinatra / Dorsey recordings.  There just so good!)   Another one I liked was Tony Bennet and Bill Charlap duo.  It's from an album of all Jerome Kern songs.  There is a nice youtube video of Bill playing All The Things You Are (also by Kern) for a radio broadcast and he describes Kern as "The angel at the top of the tree for American popular writers."

So the chord changes always kicked my butt, and arranging the song did too.  This was the first one that I started over a couple times.  I ended up with a little two voice counterpoint at the beginning - something different than I've done so far in this project.  I'd like to tell you that I think it's nice, but in truth I don't know.  At this point of the process (after laboring over the arrangement, then practicing it nearly to death, doing multiple takes to record, listening back, etc.) I've pretty much lost all objectivity.  I'll have to come back to it and listen in a few days and assess.  And even then it won't be the same as how it will sound to me in a few months time.  Fun with the artistic process!

This is number 12.  I'm officially half way through now.  It's not getting easier at this point, but I think that's okay.   I didn't do this because I thought it would be easy.  Thanks for reading and listening!

11.) I'll Be Seeing You

Well hello there.  The 11th song of the 24 Standards project is I'll Be Seeing You by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal.

I was only vaguely familiar with this song before I heard the - wait for it...- Frank Sinatra/Tommy Dorsey recording.  I fell in love with the tune after listening to that a couple times.  I love how the melody keeps climbing in the last eight bars of the tune.  It is a widely recorded song, although I only found a couple recordings that included the verse; those by Vera Lynn and Tony Bennet.  Other recordings I listened to were Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Cassandra Wilson, Willie Nelson, and Brad Mehldau.   But it really came down to that Sinatra/Dorsey recording for me.  That's the one I hear in my head when I think of this song.

On another note...let the "mind games" begin.  The last two recordings (this one and Stardust) were a challenge.  For some reason I've been getting really hung up when I turn the recorder on.  Part of the problem is that I'm working alone.  In solo piano playing I'm required to make everything happen and I must cover all aspects of the music.   If I'm playing with a rhythm section, I can easily stop playing chords and just focus on playing a melody.  But here I have to spread my awareness fully across the instrument and fully across the entire soundscape.  That may be obvious, but it really increases my respect for the great solo pianists that I've checked out, especially when they improvise lines that are just as beautiful as if they were playing with a band.  But mostly my difficulties are from psyching myself out.  "Ok, I made it through that section, don't screw up the next part..." and you know what happens when you think like that.  In most of these recordings I play my arrangement, and return to the same arrangement after the improvised solo.  I often get a little nervous coming out of the improv, especially if there are a couple of challenging spots in the arrangement.  Oh, the joys of the mind.   It's my basic belief that with good focused work, I can practice my way out of any doubt or distraction.  My focus probably suffers sometimes because I'm so interested in (and often obsessed with!) many other things.  In the end though, I know that a broad range of interests helps the music.  If only I was a better at compartmentalizing.  If you have experience growing fruit trees please let me know.

My usual routine for this project is: 1.) Choose a song. 2.) Research it a bit.  3.) Seek out some recordings and listen.  4.) Write the arrangement of the song, usually focusing on the phrasing of the melody first.  5.) Learn my arrangement. 6.) Practice a complete version with an improvised solo.  7.) Record it.  8.) Post it on this here blog.

It's number six that I think is getting me hung up here.   I think I need to get number six happening earlier in the process to get over these mind games that I'm playing.  It takes awhile to know my arrangement well, but it also takes awhile to intimately know the form of the song for improvising.  I probably just need to take more time to do so.  What's the rush, right?

So there's a snippet of what can go on inside a musician's mind.  Of course there are many wonderful things going on in there too, and I'd be really happy if you think of wonderful things while you listen to this one.

10.) Stardust

Number ten!  Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish was on my list from the very beginning.  I’ve loved this song for a long time.  I like songs that have a wide range and big arching melodies.  I checked out Carmichael’s original recording which interestingly was instrumental, pretty fast, and it didn’t have the verse.  The lyrics came a couple years later with Bing Crosby’s recording and that’s when the verse also appeared, at least on the recordings - maybe it had been there from the beginning.  This is interesting to me because this is a popular verse - many people know it and play it.  And as for the lyrics, I honestly thought that they were written by Hoagy Carmichael himself before I did the research.  It’s hard to imagine lyrics that fit the music better than in Stardust.  

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

High up in the sky the little stars climb

Always reminding me that we're apart

You wandered down the lane and far away

Leaving me a song that will not die

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by

Sometimes I wonder why I spend

The lonely night dreaming of a song

The melody haunts my reverie

And I am once again with you

When our love was new

And each kiss an inspiration

But that was long ago

Now my consolation

Is in the stardust of a song

Beside a garden wall

When stars are bright

You are in my arms

The nightingale tells his fairy tale

Of paradise where roses bloom

Though I dream in vain

In my heart it will remain

My stardust melody

The memory of love's refrain

I think Stardust is a testament to the power of music.  Music can change my mood instantly.  As I’ve been doing these standards I’ve noticed how nice it is to get reminders about love.  That must be one reason why so many songs are written about it, and in this day and age we need those reminders. 

I want to bring up something called “back phrasing”.   I heard about it when I was in music school.  It refers to when a singer or instrumentalist sings or plays a melody later in time than originally written.  If a melody was written as four quarter notes in a measure, it might be sung or played as four eighth notes at the end of the measure, or even going into the next measure.   Billie Holiday is famous for doing this.  Keith Jarrett does it a lot too.  I used it a fair amount in this arrangement, but it actually has been a bit of a challenge to incorporate for me.  I’ve been starting my arrangemrnts by writing out the melody in accordance to how I think the lyrics are naturally phrased.   And for whatever reason it seems to be more centered, although often slightly different than what’s on the page.   But I managed to play around with a touch of back phrasing here and I think it worked pretty well.  

There is a recording of this song by Bill Charlap - a pianist that I’ve been listening to quite a bit lately.  Check out the youtube video of him playing All The Things You Are on an NPR radio program - so much great piano arranging stuff in just two choruses!  If I remember correctly, I originally picked up his album titled Stardust when I was in college after I read a 5-star review of it in Downbeat magazine - something I used to do - if it got 5 stars, I’d get it.   Shirley Horne sings Stardust on that record and it stuck with me and is probably the recording I emulated most with my phrasing of the melody.  

  

Now I have to mention Willie Nelson.  Many of you know that I’m a big Willie fan.  Stardust was the title track of a popular record of his, and I believe it’s one of his hits.  It’s quite nice.  And I really got a kick out of watching Willie perform it in a youtube video.  It was in an episode of the Tonight Show, when Branford Marsalis was the leader of the house band.  Willie plays it with Branford’s band backing him - Kenny Kirkland playing organ, Robert Hurst bass, Kevin Eubanks guitar, I think Marvin Smitty Smith on drums.  I used to listen to Branford a lot back in the college days, but didn’t really care at all about Willie back then - Willie came later.  So it was cool to see this.  They really emulate Willie’s studio recording, except instead of a full guitar solo, he shares the space with Branford.  Interesting to note, Willie seems to do the opposite of back phrasing.  He rushes through the phrases, finishing them early.   I’ve noticed he’s doing this more and more in live performance as he’s gotten older, and he seems to “talk” the words more.  Too much grass for Willie perhaps?  

Okay, enough is enough.  Here’s one of my favorite songs:  

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.   

8.) Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

Hello!  I'm pleased to share with you the 8th recording of the 24 Standards project.  The song is Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered by the classic American songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.  It's from a musical called Pal Joey, which I haven't seen I'm sorry to say.  My favorite recordings of this song are those by Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald.  There's also one I found by Bill Snyder & His Orchestra.  I hadn't heard of Bill Snyder before, but I enjoyed his version.

This song presented a challenge in my desire to effectively represent the lyrics in my arrangement simply because there are a lot of lyrics - three full verses and choruses.  So I decided to focus on my favorite verse and chorus which happen to be the ones that Sinatra sings.

As I proceeded to arrange the song, an opportunity presented itself for a "Chopinesque" treatment of the bridge.  I few months ago I became obsessed with a video of Martha Argerich performing Chopin's Scherzo No. 3 at the Chopin International Piano Competition in 1965.  Her winning of this competition brought her international fame.  I encourage you to check out the video - her playing is stunning and effortless.   What I love about the Scherzo No. 3 is the very simple melody alternating with the "rainfall" phrases in the upper register.

When I first saw this video I was inspired to pull out the score and see what was happening, and perhaps learn to play the piece.  What I discovered was that the rainfall had a very different sound at the very slow tempo that I was able to do.  The questions that arose were "Was Chopin able to sit down and improvise the rainfall phrases?  If so, did he need to play them slow in order to write them down on the page?  OR, was he able to sit away from the piano and write these phrases note for note on paper and know exactly how they would sound at a faster tempo?"  My theory is that there was both happening, but moreso it was the latter.  I think that what separates a "heavy" classical composer and a guy like me is the ability to do this.  While I might attempt it, and yes, have a rough idea of what I write will sound like,  I really don't know until I sit down at the piano to play it.  And most often I'm composing at the piano anyway - figuring out what notes I want by playing them, then writing them down.   But if you look at the output of the great composers it seems there simply isn't time for this checking everything at the piano, and my guess is that Chopin often worked that way.  The only evidence of otherwise is that Chopin's music is often eerily well suited to the hand - the flashy phrases are usually easy to play and make the pianist sound impressive.   He obviously was a pianist.  Another theory is that some other genius transcribed his improvisations and then Chopin later organized it.  His music often does sound improvisational.  Maybe you know how he worked, and maybe it's been researched at written about.  I'm just speculating, but if you know, please share....

Anyway, after spending a couple weeks with the Chopin score it was obvious that I would need a lot more patience and time and miracles to sound like Argerich!  I gave up, but it left an impression, and I remembered the concept when I arrived at the bridge of Bewitched.  What's so interesting is how different it sounds when played slow.  In my emulation of the idea, there was a definite leap of faith.  I only hoped that the phrases would sound how I wanted them to at a faster tempo.  I think it worked.  But to be sure I'll have to forget about it for a while and come back in a month and see how they sound.  Right now it's all too fresh.

I guess all that we know is that the artistic process is very personal and very different from individual to individual.  And that's a lovely thing.  I really love hearing about how others do their work and I hope you enjoy reading about my process a bit.  One thing for sure is that we need to be making and appreciating honest art more than ever.

Apologies for the mic distortion at the end of the bridge.  I got a little louder than expected there.  

Thanks for reading!  I hope you enjoy Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.

7.) Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye

For the seventh song of the project, I chose Cole Porter's Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye.  It was first performed in 1944 by a singer named Nann Wynn in a musical revue show called Seven Lively Arts. I did some hunting for it, but was unable to find a recording of that show, or any version by Wynn, unfortunately.  But this is a very popular tune and there are many great recordings to hear.  I am fond of the Chet Baker / Paul Bley duo on the record called Diane, and also Ella Fitzgerald's recording from the Norman Granz Songbooks series that she did.  Ella hasn't had a mention yet in this project, but my wife recently got me hooked on her and she's sure to get more mentions here in the future.

Since starting the project there has, for the most part, been a trend toward simplicity.  The older arrangements are a little busier and have more going on than the new ones.  Maybe you don't hear it so much, but it's there at least in my head.  Some of these songs just don't want to be messed with too much.  Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye is one of those.  The melody has a kind of purity and suspense to it that I didn't want to detract from with a bunch of extra ideas.  I play it slow.  It's just a touching sad and beautiful song to me.  I don't think there's much else to say.  But before I move onto the next piece, I'd like to recite the lyrics to you.  Interesting to note is that Cole Porter was one of the few composers who wrote his own lyrics.  Perhaps that's why I find this song to be so pure.  And I'm a sucker for the "from major to minor" lyric and harmonic alignment.

Ev'rytime we say goodbye 

I die a little

Ev'rytime we say goodbye 

I wonder why a little

Why the gods above me 

Who must be in the know

Think so little of me 

And allow you to go

When you're near there's such an ere 

Of Spring about it

I can hear a lark somewhere 

Begin to sing about it

There's no love song finer 

But how strange the change

From major to minor

Ev'rytime we say goodbye

6.) Stars Fell On Alabama

Hello!  Remember me?  Remember this project?  It's been way too long since I've posted.  Needless to say, I'm way behind and I'm definitely leaving behind the idea that this will be done in a year.  August was difficult for this project.  I spent a week at the Kushi Institute playing music with bassist Thomas Morgan.  It was great.  When I returned home, my parents were visiting, and we painted our kitchen cabinets and did some hiking, swimming, and eating out.  After they left we continued to do some painting.  Then it was time to get our teaching schedules worked out.  So it's been busy.

I actually had this arrangement completed before I went to the Kushi Institute, but I didn't begin learning it and memorizing it until after my parents left.  And that's the most difficult part, as I've mentioned before.  Plus I've been soaking up all the end of summer in the Hudson Valley as I can.  It's been great.  I didn't rush to learn this one, and I didn't rush to get the recorder out.  It actually made it much easier when I started recording today.  I just knew the arrangement better.  

I've always been a fairly disciplined person.  I like routines.  I like to set myself up on a schedule of activities or courses of study and stick to them.  I did that for my piano practice in college, for yoga practice, meditation practice, as well as all these internet projects.  New York City helps with that sort of thing.  There's not much nature to get you out of the house, going places is mostly a pain in the ass, and there are amazing musicians doing amazing things all around you.  Well, now living upstate, things are a little different.  Many of my other interests are demanding my time.  Although I'm still close to NYC and still involved in playing there, I'm not immediately surrounded by musicians who's successes make me feel like a failure if I take a day off.  I'm quite happy about this actually, but it's just interesting to note the effects of this change.  

When I was in college, it was about learning jazz vocabulary and learning to physically play piano.  It was the building materials.  Of course that never stops completely.  But post school has been much more about getting inspired to use those building materials in a personal way.  And often the inspiration is coming from sources outside of music.  If you think about it, music would be pretty dull if it existed in its own bubble separate from the other arts, nature, and the rest of life.  I'm feeling super inspired by my surroundings now, but there isn't as much of a feeling of urgency with the work.  I'm okay with that, as long as you are.  What's the rush?  I'm a fourth done with this project now.  There's a long way to go.  But I'm excited about it.  And I'm starting to feel the desire for creative expansion.  There's plenty to expand upon within the parameters of "straight ahead" solo piano arrangements and I plan to stick to the format.  As my ideas are "used up" a contraction occurs and new things are squeezed out.  

The sixth song is Stars Fell On Alabama, music by Frank Perkins, lyrics by Mitchell Parish.  I learned this song years ago from the album Cannonball and Coltrane.  I love the way Cannonball Adderly plays this tune on that record.  I checked out the first recording version by Guy Lombardo, as well as several others, including Sinatra again.   They're all good.  This tune is pretty hard to screw up.  (Let me try though!)  It's just a good melody.  About 15 years ago I made a little home recording at school of a few tunes that I gave my relatives for Christmas.  Stars Fell on Alabama was on it, and it was my grandma's favorite.  A couple of older friends of mine have heard me practicing this arrangement and they all know the tune well.  It's just a classic.  

I tried incorporating the lyrics, or at least the title, into my arrangment with some possibly corny "falling" motifs.  The intro has some improvised "stars falling", and there is a continual descending theme happening, first in the bassline, then in a middle voice.  I reversed the direction of it in the last A section with a sequence of ascending harmonic seconds.  I think I've heard this sort of thing called word painting.  It's fun, and hopefully not too obvious.  Another fun thing about the lyrics that you won't get from my arrangement - you'll have to check out some vocal versions - is the necessity of some sort of east coast or old fashioned accent in order to make the lyrics rhyme with Alabama.  

We lived our little drama (dräma)

We kissed in a field of white

And stars fell on Alabama last night

I can't forget the glamour (glamah)

Your eyes held a tender light

And stars fell on Alabama last night

I never planned in my imagination

A situation so heavenly

A fairy land where no one else could enter

And in the center just you and me, dear

My heart beat like a hammer (hammah)

My arms wound around you tight

And stars fell on Alabama last night