I wrote “Open Road, Closed Door” just a couple of weeks after moving from New York to Portland in November of ’07.  If I remember correctly, the first performance of the song was at the Portland Jazz Festival in February 2008 when I was featured at Darrell Grant’s young artist series at the Old Church.

The song looks complicated on paper — lots of changing time signatures and chord changes, but they all serve the purpose of supporting a rather simple melody — it’s not just complexity for the sake of complexity.  But, while the melody may sound simple, it’s a hard tune to play.

We stick to the stereotypical jazz form on this one — melody, solos, melody, with a vamp at the end — no overdubs, no through-composed sections.  While I definitely enjoy putting together the compositions where we push those boundaries, it’s also nice to get back to a more simple layout like this sometimes.