Greetings and Salutations!

Last week I recorded what is to be the CD for the next etude book. This book is mostly in the straight-ahead jazz realm, and is about as close to the way I naturally play as you can get. What I did on this one is write simple tunes and then solo on the tunes and transcribe the solos. The other books were written out in their entirety, and played after the fact.

The rhythm section on this one (Phil Markowitz, John Riley, and Rufus Reid) played great, and inspired me to do my thing! Aside from the vocabulary issues addressed in the book, one can really get a sense of how this quartet interacts and makes music together.

While transcribing the improvised sections of the pieces I began to realize how instructive it is to transcribe your own solos. You get a chance to really put a microscope to your improvising, and see whats going on. It made me think back to the early 70s, when I took a few lessons with Richie Beirach, and he had me compose a solo. The first one was unplayable, and I realized that improvising had to have a compositional quality to it. Of course, having a rich vocabulary from which to draw from is a must. But the experience of writing out a solo pointed me in the direction of becoming an articulate improviser. In writing out the soloed portions of this etude bookI was able to see that my improvising has a rhyme and reason for being there, and is an extension of the tune. There were numerous examples of motifs that were developed through repetition and evolution. It was actually fairly easy to write down. Most of it laid quite comfortably.

I've always been a proponent of the concept that composition and improvisation are closely related. Anyone who improvises needs to come to the table via compositional thinking. Try carrying some music paper around, and write a page or more of freely associated music every now and again. It will reveal a lot about your musical thinking as it pertains to improv. And who knows, you might come up with a cool tune or two!

Keep playing the piano! It unlocks all kinds of secrets about playing good lines when you solo. Keep writing tunes. They are the vehicles for your playing. Keep reaching out to people with a spirit of love and compassion. Maybe this will help the hostile environment we live in today a little bit.