Party: Jeff Fuller - CD Release

Party: Jeff Fuller - CD Release

Sat, Jan 31, 9pm, $10.

Come celebrate the release of Jeff Fuller's new CD -
"The Call From Within"
Featuring Darren Litzie on piano, and Ben Bilello on drums.

All original new compositions. Come listen, laugh and participate in some fun contests to win great musical prizes!!

"This music has been gestating in my heart, soul and mind for a long, long time. It has emerged as the end product of years of performing, arranging and composing jazz in its many styles, languages and forms. The earliest pieces on here are Nice Sky and Where Did April Go? (1990s) - the latest are Don’t Look Now and Happenstance (2014). It seemed fitting to arrange them for the classic small jazz orchestra - the piano trio. “Orchestra” describes the interplay and unique roles each instrument has to offer - each contributing a unique color, vocabulary and voice.
My distinguished colleagues and friends, Darren Litzie on piano and Ben Bilello on drums, were more than
up to the task of contributing their own colors, vocabularies and voices. We have worked together many times
over the years in clubs and concerts, but I can’t thank them enough for learning, rehearsing, performing and
recording this creative project. My longtime friend Norman Johnson, in whose studio we recorded, was an
equally skillful and creative partner in capturing the essence of the music.
Several of the tunes are so-called contrafacts – new melodies composed over existing harmony from a standard
tune. But more often than not, I have tweaked the original feel of the song in my own way. For example, We
Friends is based on A Beautiful Friendship (1956, Styne/Kahn) but the new melody is composed entirely using only two whole-tone scales. The result is an interesting divergence between the chords and the melody.
Coraçao e Alma – the title should give you a hint! – is both a new melody and a re-harmonization of Hoagy Carmichael’s Heart and Soul (1938), set to a samba rhythm. Many folks, even musicians, are unaware that the simple ‘A’ section of the original song is perfectly foiled by the very chromatic chord progression on the ‘B’ section. For me, the most fun one is Don’t Look Now, based on Gershwin’s Someone To Watch Over Me (1926). The original is a ballad, but my tune is speeded up considerably. See if you can hum along while we play it! Ain’t Ain’t Misbehavin’ should require no explanation.
The rest of the tunes were composed from scratch, from influences as wide as Broadway show tunes, bebop, Latin music, and even Indian raga. The title tune, The Call From Within, was composed at the piano, so I played it on Norman Johnson’s beautiful Steinway. The title captures a thought I once had, 'Don’t wait for the call… the call comes from within!' It’s an apt description of why I felt compelled to release my first CD of all original music. It’s taken a while to get these tunes recorded, and hopefully this is only a beginning.
I have many more waiting to be heard, so… look for Vol. II at some point!
Sometimes music has a mind of its own. Several of these pieces have forced their way into my musical consciousness, even literally waking me out of a sound sleep. The obvious example here is Upon Waking, but to some degree or other Happenstance, June Bug and Girando all came to me nearly completely formed. I love it when that happens – the tunes almost write themselves! Two Months Pass also just formed itself as a set of chords, their associated modes and a quasi-improvised melody.
One For All required more work. It owes its existence to a challenge I made to myself – to write a tune in the style of one of my favorite jazz composers, Wayne Shorter. On this tune – as on all the others! – it’s amazing to hear how Darren and Ben handle the subtleties of meter, harmony style and melody. In fact, this entire collection demonstrates the “orchestral” skill of handing off the melody, composed or improvised, to each other throughout.
Music is all about melody isn’t it? And about that call that comes from within. Thanks for listening!"
-Jeff Fuller, New Haven, CT – December, 2014