This piece is different than what we’ve done before.

As I mentioned in Week 28, some of the performances from Norwegian groups at the Portland Jazz Festival inspired me to explore different avenues and directions with my compositions for Duo Chronicles.  This meant finding both a different sonic palette to write for as well as different compositional forms and note choices.

This particular piece is heavily inspired by the Christian Wallumrod Ensemble, which played a set of through-composed music at the festival — not the usual melody, solo, melody forms that we’re so used to hearing in jazz.  My piece, “Twenty Seven,” much like a classical piece, is fully through-composed and is the first of the Duo Chronicles pieces to not include any improvisation, besides phrasing and inflections.

Sometimes, when writing a piece and trying to explore new sounds, it’s useful to have some sort of ‘rule’ that makes you break out of your normal box as a composer.  When I studied with Dick Oatts in New York, he was big on this idea.  In fact, on his record South Paw, I believe nearly every piece was originally written as an exercise with some sort of rule in mind.  For this piece, I decided to try to justify every note in the piece by being either a 3rd or a 9th away from the previous note or another note in the chord.  This, combined with the fact that it was week 27 of the project when I started writing it, lead to the title (9 x 3 = 27).

Towards the end of the piece, I abandoned the rule briefly — I decided that it was better to break the rule and have the piece sound the way that I wanted rather than stick to the rule and compromise the sound — after all, the goal of the rule was to inspire a new sound, which I had achieved at the beginning of the piece.

I know that Clay and I both have some new compositions coming up soon that explore different sounds and instruments (note the new melodica Clay’s playing in “Twenty Seven”).  We’re excited to share these new ideas with you.

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The Ides of March refers to the 15th of March so I suppose we are a few weeks late with this one. Julius Caesar was killed on this day and was warned of his impending death, but didn’t take heed. I choose this title more in relation to the fact the Spring makes a brief appearance and then withdraws, but it is clear that a change of season is coming. The shape or form of this composition is a subtle rise throughout, culminating in a somewhat deceptive harmonic resolution in the end. Just because a piece of music starts on a minor chord doesn’t mean it can’t end on a major one.  The rain and wind may blow, but eventually must break, in its own cadence, its own time.

It always comes back to the blues, or in the immortal words of Joe Williams, “everyday I have the blues.”  By that I mean, the 12 bar form that jazz musicians often use as a template for improvising. The blues can be simple, complex or some combination of the two. The blues can be sad, mournful or happy and upbeat. Basically a wide range of emotion can be projected. Same with tempo anywhere from super slow to blistering fast. So I guess part of the appeal is the versatility and freedom possible when playing a blues. If you attend a jam session chances are good that you will hear a blues at some point.

So the title for this week is simple, just blues. I thought it appropriate to take a melody that I had written several years and explore it through lens of today. I think John and I draw from the blues vernacular, but also explore harmonic and rhythmic ideas from a more modern standpoint, a blend of the two ends of the spectrum.

Note: Duo Chronicles will be performing live at Brasserie Montmartre on March 18th

Duo Chronicles will be doing a short on-air performance on March 12th on Portland’s jazz station – KMHD.

The host of the show, Lynn Darroch, will join us for one of his “jazz stories” that he has prepared to accompany our piece “Common Ground.”  We’ll also be performing another piece from our repertoire as a duo.

Tune in a 2PM on 89.1 or on the web at KMHD.fm

Duo Chronicles will be performing live at Brasserie Montmartre on March 18 from 8:30 – midnight.  There’s no cover, so feel free to stop by for dinner or a drink and enjoy a chance to hear the project live.

As I mentioned last week, this year’s Portland Jazz Festival just wrapped up.  Some of the most interesting music that I heard at the festival came from several Norwegian musicians that came through as part of the festival — particularly Trygve Seim’s duo with Frode Haltli and the Christian Wallumrod Ensemble.  Rather than getting caught up in endless solos full of eighth notes, the Norwegians tended to play as an ensemble, rarely featuring any one particular musician.

The piece that I wrote for this week reflects some of the lessons I learned while listening to these groups.  The piece is truly a duet — there’s a small piano solo in the middle and a small saxophone solo near the end, but the majority of the piece is the two of us interweaving a relatively simple melodic idea.  The title, “Off Kilter,” comes from the fact that the piece, while generally a waltz in 3/4, has a couple of 2/4 bars thrown in that give the piece a different lilt than if it were in a constant 3.

If you check out the sheet music, you’ll see that both of us stay close to what is on the page — Clay’s piano part, for example, is completely written out for the majority of the piece, rather than being improvised based on a set of written chord changes like is often the case for jazz piano parts.  In many ways, the piece is more similar to a classical etude than a jazz piece — another idea inspired by the new music I saw at the festival.

Next week, we’ll be visit nearly the polar opposite of the spectrum — a dirty slow blues from Clay.

Special note: Duo Chronicles will be performing live at Brasserie Montmartre on March 18

Sometimes simplicity is nice.  This week’s song doesn’t have any complex chord changes, any odd meters, or strange phrasing.  It’s just a little pop tune that feels good.

The title, “Still Going,” is a reference to the fact that this song is kicking off the second half of our year-long project.  As we move into weeks 27-52, we’ve just finished the Portland Jazz Festival where we got to see some amazing Norwegian musicians that performed as headliners of the festival.  The most apropos to the Duo Chronicles project was the saxophone/accordion duo of Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli.  They played a beautiful set of melodic music intertwined with sound and texture-based improvisation.  I know that in the second half of our project here I’d love to explore some ideas that they inspired.

Look for new explorations coming in the next few weeks.

Already in the bullpen ready to go is a through-composed song that I wrote based on some of the sounds I heard from the Christian Wallumrod ensemble — another Norwegian group made up of piano, harp, trumpet, cello, violin, and percussion.