Peace

What style of music are the songs on the album?  That’s easy enough to answer: a complete mixture!  And that’s because ever since I started composing I was influenced by whatever I was hearing on TV: theme tunes, commercials, pop songs – and whatever my parents were putting on the turntable, which ranged from the classics, through Gilbert & Sullivan and Flanders & Swann to Hollywood musicals.  And when I started taking piano lessons, I was taken through the whole pageant of one and two-hand exercises all the way up through marches and folk tunes and Christmas carols to the classical greats.  So even when I finally discovered jazz and latin I had already composed in a variety of styles.  The songs on the album reflect that variety and I hope this means there is something there for everyone!

‘Come And Light My Light Tonight’ is a show-tune, not with the idea of ever producing a musical, but there’s a story there and I felt the colla voce introduction and the up-beat tone would provide the ideal way in to the album. The melody came from my pre-jazz days, though the exact tone of the piece only materialised when I came to preparing it for the album.

The next seven songs reflect my love of swing and latin, experimenting with harmonic movement and, especially with the two bossa novas, not worrying about sticking to a standard form.  In fact, ‘Please Can We Do It Again?’ began life in 3/4 time, and rather folky, but the lure of jazz pulled it into common-time swing.

‘When I Think About You’ was always in 3/4 time, but began life swinging along, then something told me it would work better as a ballad, so here it is – a simple conversation between piano and voice.

‘Slough’ was a move into blues, with a funky twist.  Slough is my home town, and the song is as much about my own professional struggle to prove myself when I moved here as about Slough itself – its reputation of hard work in industry and innovation.

‘Peace’ was another melody which originated from my pre-jazz ‘era’, but it required a bridge, and again that only came together when I decided to produce the album, when I had developed the necessary maturity and harmonic chops.

As for the lyrics – well, all of the songs were created ‘the wrong way round’ – meaning tune first.  Usually, songs are words-driven, and the tune develops either hand-in-hand with the words, with the lyricist and composer working together (or they’re the same person!), or after the writer has blocked out the lyrics.  With me, a tune springs to life on its own.  A title and a theme often make themselves apparent, but once the tune exists I then have to solve the jigsaw puzzle: to make the words fit the tune exactly, syllable by syllable, stress by stress.  It’s a slow process, but if it works, it has a really great pay-off!

But the proof of the pudding, as always, is in the hands, or rather the ears, of the listener.

Here’s hoping you enjoy listening to ‘Peace’.