Last night I recorded myself performing the jazz standard Giant Steps on the piano. In this video I give a 1 minute introduction to the song and then perform it. If you’re interested in the audio only, you can grab the MP3 from here or use the audio player above.
We made a video of one of the songs, My Foolish Heart by Ned Washington and Victor Young. It’s available on Youtube or by using the player below. Hope you enjoy!
Last night I made a video recording of myself performing an original jazz bebop tune on the piano. It’s called Ocean Apart and I wrote it last summer while taking a composition class with New York jazz pianist Misha Piatigorsky.
You can view the video on Youtube, Blip.tv, or use the player below.
Benny Reid, 29, is an saxophonist, composer, teacher, and recording artist who studied at Indiana University and now resides in New York. (Find him on Twitter, All About Jazz, Myspace, or Youtube).
He recently released his second album, Escaping Shadows, on the Concord Jazz label.
It features Benny Reid (alto saxophone & keyboards), Richard Padron (acoustic and electric guitars), Pablo Vergara (piano, Fender Rhodes, keyboards), Daniel Loomis (bass and electric bass), Kenny Grohowski (drums), Jeff Taylor (vocals), and Ryan Fitch (percussion).
For a sample of the music on the CD, check out the video below (or on Youtube).
One of Benny Reid’s main influences is Pat Metheny, and many of his compositions have parallels in some of Pat Metheny’s earlier works. The title track, Escaping Shadows, reminds me of Metheny’s Minuano Six Eight.
I’m a big fan of Pat Metheny so Benny Reid’s compositions immediately appealed to me. His work is similar in style and interpretation to Bob Curnow’s (who did a recording of Metheny’s earlier works in a big band style). Benny Reid’s arrangements make use of the smaller ensemble well and move between a contemporary, abstract style and an almost smooth-jazz sound for some of the melody lines and musical effects.
I especially enjoy Kenny Grohowski’s sensitive, nuanced, and very active drumming (which tends on the busy side but is very musical).
Benny Reid has a great sound on the alto sax – a very clear, expressive and pure tone. He avoids repeating the often quoted licks of bebop and instead forges his own way, with easily recalled and infectious melodies that seem almost derivative in their simplicity, but taken in the context of the band and compositions are obviously original.
Escaping Shadows is available as a Mp3 download or a physical disk from Concord Music Group.
My friend Marcus dropped by today for a visit, and we recorded an improvised performance of synthesizer and piano. It’s called Heartbeet. We named it this maybe because we both really like to eat beets, (yum!) and so therefore “heart” them, as well as because we were wanting to play on the concept of the pulsating bass drum that sometimes goes out of time from the piano, much like a heart beat will continue its own rhythm oblivious to the other rhythms around it.
The video is also available on Blip.tv and the Mp3 file for the song is available here.
Kurt Elling, jazz vocalist (photo credit: Christian Lantry)
One of my all time favorite jazz vocalists is the inimitable Kurt Elling. He has been voted Male Vocalist of the Year for 10 years in a row by critics in Downbeat magazine and for 5 years by the Downbeat readers’ choice awards.
Kurt Elling has done some really incredible recordings, and I am definitely going to go out and try to complete my collection and get all 8 of his albums.
The current JazzPianoCafe song of the week is Kurt Elling’s recording of his very romantic original song, Where I Belong. It’s from his 1998 album This Time It’s Love. Here are the lyrics, courtesy of Kurt Elling’s website:
Lyric by Kurt Elling
I hear the woman like a song / dancing down a long corridor
Reminding me I belong where I am
I see the singing in the rain/ the rhythm at my windowpane
Reminding me I belong where I am
There is a light in the silence of loving things
And when I look in my baby’s hopeful eyes
It’s like the sound just before ever morning horizon
Light comes to life
It’s like a magnet of loving sound / turning me rightside down
Keeping my two feet firmly planted on the ground
Reminding me I belong where I am.
This recording of Where I Belong features the following stellar musicians: Kurt Elling voice, Laurence Hobgood piano, Rob Amster bass, Michael Raynor percussion, Dave Oderdonk guitar, Paul Wertico drums, and Brad Wheeler soprano saxophone.
The track opens with burst of warm sound. A simple riff on the soprano sax is echoed by the piano, accompanied by drums, acoustic bass and guitar. The riff is repeated once and then Kurt Elling enters with his sparkling and luscious baritone. A hypnotizing bossa nova ensues, with an exciting and tasteful soprano sax solo well shaped to a gentle climax before the final vocal melody restatement. The outro is a vamp on the original intro riff, ending with a bit of Kurt Elling’s whistling on the fade out.
Highly recommended! Hope you enjoy this song and check back again next week for another JazzPianoCafe “Song of the Week”.
If you’d like to download MP3’s of the concert (free) you can get them from here.
With Julian’s permission I used my minidisc unit to record the audio from our performance. There is quite a bit of background noise from the wedding guests’ conversation, but in the recordings you can hear both of us quite clearly.
I also set up my Sony Camcorder in the corner and video-taped our performance too. There was very low light, so you can barely make us out in the video, but it gives more context to the audio to be able to see us perform too.
At this wedding, we performed a selection of mainstream jazz standards in a duo style. Probably my biggest inspiration for the saxophone-piano duo format is the legendary combination of Stan Getz (saxophone) and Kenny Barron (piano). Another inspiration for rhythmic ideas has been the mighty pianist Chick Corea and his duets with the one and only voice artist Bobby Mcferrin (such as their killer performance of Autumn Leaves).
So without further ado, here’s our complete performance (except for the last song we played, Confirmation by Charlie Parker, where we got interrupted by some DJ music).
Hope you enjoy! I hope that these performances will give you some ideas or inspiration for your own journeys in jazz and music in general.