As the fall season progresses and the flow du jour remains northwesterly, I’m glad I’ve got music to keep me occupied. Ridging may be a storm chaser’s nightmare, but here in Michigan it’s a color tourist’s dream as the slanting sun illuminates hillsides ablaze with scarlet, yellow, purple, orange, and the summer’s last green. Now, in this poet’s season, is when the musician in me comes alive.
Thursday’s gig with keyboard monster Paul Lesinski at The Seasonal Grille in Hastings, Michigan, went beautifully. It’s amazing how much music a sax player can make with just a piano accompaniment when the pianist is as gifted as Paul.
Of course, nothing can beat playing with a complete rhythm section of hugely competent players. That was the setting this morning into the early afternoon at Ric Troll’s studio west of Grand Rapids. It’s a privilege and a joy to make music with players the caliber of Ric, Randy Marsh, and Dave DeVos. Today, it was doubly nice to break away from the usual American songbook repertoire and work on some original material by Ric plus a couple of Pat Metheny tunes. Don’t get me wrong, I love the old standards. But I really welcome the opportunity to explore fresh directions that call for a different approach, free from the cliches that are so easy to fall into with the traditional 32-bar song form.
I had thought that today would be a recording session, but it didn’t turn out that way. Some of the tunes are quite challenging–one, with it’s three-against-four polymeter, took me a good while to digest–and I think Ric’s goal for this session was for all of us to simply get a feel for the music. Can’t fault him there, though there were some very nice moments that I’d have loved to listen to the replay of. Maybe next time. And I hope we can make that next time soon. I really like what came out of today’s creative ferment, and once we’ve got the material down tight, I think we’ll have the makings of a very nice recording.
