There is nothing I hate more than going to a site that is under construction or says our CD is coming soon.
You come back in a year and still, nothing...but uh...I’m working on a CD and it is coming soon. I decided to be blunt to
get the site out there faster and present this section as a work in progress. I’ll try to keep you abreast on the progress.
THE CONCEPT
When you do an album of mostly instrumental music the reaction usually is “that sounds like a sound
track for a movie”. An old black and white movie..? Yah...
Hence... DREAMING IN BLACK AND WHITE
Dreaming in Black and White is the working title that came to me when reading the book The Half-Barbaric Twang which has
some cool black and white pictures of banjo players from eras gone by when banjo was king. A great well documented book by Karen
Linn.
This batch of original tunes is stylist all over the map in keeping with my eclectic nature. However within each tune there
is continuity and each is a respectful parody of a musical style. To tie the album together I give each song a pseudo period date
as a history of music through time. There is a difference between being true to a banjo style and being true to a musical style.
This is of course not true to a particular period banjo style. But more like discovering a treasure chest of old tunes and playing
them as they would be today.
All M.C. Escher works © the M.C. Escher Company B.V. – Baarn – the Netherlands. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION
What about the illusion of reality? Like the trick of painting a picture of a room of an art museum of paintings in an
art museum. These paintings within seem less real then the actual painting but both are just globs of paint.
As one passes through to the new world the old seems less real... And one sees himself as the new birth of a reality. This
is true when one passes to the next dimension but is this new reality any more real?
How would you do this with banjo?
This is the playing of a melody that is shifted to a new context. Thus the stereotype is broken yet reinforcing the stereotype
adds to the sense that it was only a limitation of a perception. One method for doing this with the banjo is to play with the
sound and shift into the cliché of the musical style. Another trick is to see the banjo as the circle that completes itself.
This is to play with a stressing of the principles of banjo as an object. See the banjo as the great instrument and then shift
the point of view and see the banjo as a generic instrument that has no distinctive tone but has the tone of all instruments.
The banjo as a symbol of the rural dream of mountains and barefoot children can be a grand instrument capable of a greater
destiny, though this new reality is not necessarily truly greater than the sincere fellowship of these original people and their
mountains. With the art of banjo we can use the tools of the great masters to create doors that open to the reality to come...
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About everything I know about classical music was a direct influence of watching cartoons as a kid.
I wrote this tune because I thought Boris and Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show deserved a romantic theme song.
I always thought they were more than comrades. You can almost hear Pavarotti or maybe Dmitry Khvorostovsky singing Boris
and Natasha . . . Boris and Natasha . . . with operatic bravado of course.
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“Its half barbaric twang is in harmony with the unmechanical melodies of the birds”. -Philadelphia
Music and Drama, 1891
I wrote this tune after a vacation to North Carolina at the John Campbell Folk School. Waking up in
the morning and hearing the mountains come alive. I also was somewhat thinking Aaron Copeland (Appalachian Spring) in feel
with the chords. He really gives you a feeling of the American landscape.
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One of the first real rags I learned on the banjo was Scott Joplin’s tune Maple Leaf Rag. This
pays homage to his inventions that combine European harmony with African syncopation.
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Now here’s something that’s really different! I think I was just trying to be dissonant. This turned
into a Primus-like twisted tune with a bit of a classical undertone. Jase the Ace (buddy Jason Jennings) on bass drives the tune
with Claypolian thrust. The cattle prod drums played by Louie Buffo (yes they were really played) sound a bit retro but I think
they fit the tune and capture the sound of nineties uh... nineteen nineties.
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This tune is a character piece, just a plain ’ole banjo tune. Maybe something an old black banjo player played before the banjo became a symbol of oppression and fell out favor with black audiences. However I personally know of no
greater freedom than the banjo.
