Occasionally

is the first album I’ve made that focuses on compositions than on improvisations. Over the years I feel that some of the best tunes I’ve written have been for special occasions, gifts for family or friends. Others are a little less specific, but bring me to a particular place or moment that had a big impact on me. Specifically:

Wedding Day

was the second “occasion” piece I ever wrote, but the first really good one. My brother was about to marry his college sweetheart, and I remember sitting at the rehearsal dinner as they got roasted a little bit and seeing a look of terror on my now sister-in-law’s face, like the gravity of what they were doing was sinking in. (Or maybe she just realized how crazy my relatives are) In any case, I went home that night and wrote most of the tune. They are still married with two sons, so I like to think the happy ending I wrote was prophetic.

Ooomph

When I lived in New York I used to play this club called Detour, on East 13th Street and First Ave. It was small and crowded and really loud and smoky and sticky, so I put together a band and a book to fit that room. We called ourselves “Ooomph” (Oomph with two Os was taken by a German doom metal band), and this was our theme song. It reminds me of that moment, trying to make it in New York as a “downtown player”, when that meant something. (It’s so cool that Tony Scherr, one of THE “downtown guys” I looked up to when I got to New York, is playing this)

624

was the jazz classroom at the Eastman School of Music, where my friends and I spent hours upon hours playing and listening to records and thinking we were going to be the next great things in improvised music. (Some of us have actually done that.) This trio format is an homage to my college mentor Michael Cain, and his album Circa that blew our minds.

“Valiant on Valance”

is another wedding gift, this one to my cousin Phil and his wife Beth. They lived on Valance Street in New Orleans, and the wedding celebrated the city and its traditions- there was a parade and a trip to Tipitina’s and lots of gumbo. The tune started by playing with the “Poinciana” beat, which is a favorite of our trumpeter Jason Palmer.

Black Suits, White Smoke

My father taught at a Jesuit Catholic high school (our alma mater) for fifty years. When he died in 2013 after a long battle with cancer, his wake and funeral were a sea of black suited, white collared priests, for the most part wonderful men. After the burial, we had a reception, and during the reception it was announced that Jorge Bergolia, a Jesuit from Argentina, was elected pope. The Jesuits in the house were nearly beside themselves with glee. With “Black Suits, White Smoke”, I tried to capture the strange mix of sadness, relief and elation we were feeling that day.

D2

are my two adorable, high-octane, truck-obsessed nephews, Declan and Dennis. The idea of this tune came from watching them delight in jumping in puddles, and not always having their balance. This turned into an off-kilter groove inspired by go-go music, the D.C. funk style that Allison and I bonded over as children of the 80s.

Bouncing off the Walls

I wrote “Bouncin’ off the Walls” early in the pandemic, when information was scarce and, living by myself, I had very little human contact. I’m lucky to have a good-sized apartment, but there were days where it did feel like the walls were closing in on me. At the same time, there was a new routine, with cooking and practicing and video games and walks. I tried to capture a little bit of that dichotomy in the tune, the chaos and the structure.

Warm and Fuzzy

This is another tune from the Detour days. We’d usually play it towards the end of the night, when the crowd was a little quieter and things felt like they were winding down. I included it here as a note of optimism, because happy endings are hard to come by these days…