Why I keep returning to late nights
Lately everything I write bends back toward late nights.
Each pass got quieter until only late nights was left.
Play it low. It was made low.
East London at 1am, trumpet leading — a room that may or may not exist.
Officially: free jazz / jazz noir on jazz ensemble. Unofficially: I found a corner of London streets and never left.
There are a few records — “Disharmony”, “Featherstone”, “If I Ever Be Back”, “Impressions”, “Mysterious Nights” and more — which is more than I expected and fewer than my mother hoped.
Does the odd tiny show around the UK — pub back rooms, little halls, the occasional living room. Nothing you'd need a ticket tout for. Fancy hosting one? Ask.
Lately everything I write bends back toward late nights.
Each pass got quieter until only late nights was left.
Play it low. It was made low.
I didn't plan “If I Ever Be Back”. It arrived as the idea of London streets and asked to be finished.
I wrote it at the jazz ensemble, mostly late, mostly by deleting.
Made small, on purpose.
Anyway. Enjoy, or don't.
I didn't plan “Featherstone”. It arrived as late nights and asked to be finished.
It is free jazz / jazz noir, so nothing hurries — the jazz ensemble is allowed to just sit in the room.
That is all it wants to be.
Anyway. Enjoy, or don't.
The method is dull and I'm proud of it — a jazz ensemble, a quiet room, the delete key.
Most of a session ends up deleted. What survives is the piece.
Owed to minimalism, ambient music, folk song. The rest I took by accident.
Everything on “Disharmony” grows out of one thing: “disharmony” as a phrase before it was a record.
The jazz ensemble does the thinking here; I only choose what to keep.
If it slowed you down for forty minutes, it did its job.
Anyway. Enjoy, or don't.