Espressivo

M and team,

Very very nice work on this .. quite expressive as the title suggests. Sweet laid back jazz .. great clean piano (choice chord voicings), gorgeous soprano sax, bass is very articulate, guitar brings a nice almost flamenco flavor, drums so subtle but so appropriately filling and accenting the space. This mighe be a bit out there but I am getting a strong sense of a 3D 'shape' for each of the instrments .. each instrument brings a different but complementary color, shape and texture to the piece. (lol .. hope that's not too bizarre an explanation). You did a great job with the call and respond type of interplay between the instruments too - it sounds like a conversation to me .. good job everyone. Amazing collaboration.

Bill

Rio Vista, huh?! Hey, we're practically neighbors! I'm just outside of Sac.

Actually, we did really try to make this sound live, but the only two of us who have ever met (to my knowledge) are Ed and Jeff. But, that's a tremedous compliment. Thanks!

ToneCarver - Thanks, Bill! Yes, I'm really happy with the conversational aspect of this. It's very much like a live performance, despite our virtual Internet collaboration. Thanks for your observations - 3D is good!

msharps - Hi, Michael! Kind words, thank you. The composition is really incredibly simple (did you look at the chart?). I'm really fond of just establishing a framework that provides room for the participants to create. You have to be somewhat atuned to what it's about, of course; and that's particularly evident in everyone's performances on this one, I think. Very intuitive and emotive playing, to me. I really appreciate these guys, for that.

As Charley points out, this one is not live, but multitracked in each of our spaces across the country (I'm east coast; Jeff and Charley (and Billy?) are left coast; Ed's our core midwesterner). Given the recording process, the very ending of this (the final bars after the melody has concluded) just came out great, to me. Everyone's comments are in just the right places, etc. I'm very proud of how it turned out.

Hey Guys,

Beautiful, first class all the way. That this was done an internet collaboration is stunning.

M, thanks for including a chart, what scale are you referring to when you write Emaj7(Harm.Maj)?

M, This is very beautiful. The sound is incredibly crisp and clear.

I like the fluid call and respond between the sax and guitar. (Wow the sax is so smooth. Very nice.)

Your melodic minor crescendos are nice and resolve well.

jamesg1213 - Thanks, James! Tower says that's "Soul with a capital 'S'," but "superb" sounds good to me! We appreciate you listening. That's a pretty LP in your avatar!

AsherLongley - Is it Asher or Matthew? Regardless, thank you! Yes, Charley's outdone himself here, no? This is my favorite playing of his, to date -- even though I think he feels more comfortable on Alto sax. The call and response thing just came out great, I think. We just began with, "okay Jeff and I will play the melody on the head, with Charley answering; and Charley and Jeff will take the melody at the end, with me answering." And, there it was.

Yeah Ed it is fun to play around with those modes and M thanks for spelling out that scale. I've played around with that a little but didn't know the name of the scale. It was over these two voicings played one after the other as in your measure 2 - 3 - 4, (maybe you might like them on this tune)

E add 9
String/fret
1 / 0
2 / 0
3 / 1
4 / 4
5 / 2
6 / 0

CMaj 6 and 7 / E bass (I'm not sure I'm naming that correctly, maybe the 6th is a 13th?)
1 / 0
2 / 0
3 / 2
4 / 5
5 / 3
6 / 0

Yeah there clangy, play all 6 strings, cowboy chords, but I like them.

ORIGINAL: M
We had a chord-scale discussion over at the Other Place forum where we got onto harmonic major, and I mentioned that I had an example of same (this piece). Anyway ... Harmonic major is a major scale with a lowered 6th degree; so, in E:

E · F# · G# · A · B · C · D# · E

I guess you could also argue that it's a harmonic minor scale with a raised 3rd degree, huh?

I don't have a better name for that scale, but as I mentioned when we first talked about it, it strikes me as odd that the "harmonic" in "harmonic minor" comes from the raised 7th and not the lowered 6th. I guess "major harmonic minor" is a little weird too! Anyway, it was fun to mess around with.

.................

Great job all around guys...
Couple things,
Jeff's piano during the intro sounds kind of dark to me, missing some presence for his solo spot...
Could be just me as I haven't worked with pianos much...
Mark, your guitar, almost has a nylon quality, but also has a "direct" sound to it, what did you use and how was it recorded?
Ed, Charley...scary stuff...
Minimal drums fit perfect as well.

RLD

Hi M,
outstanding performances by everybody....
Jeff ...love your paino sound and playing on this song
Ed, wow you pulled out all the stops and I'm loving it
Charley , love the tone and phrasing
M , nice composition and I happen to love the sound of nylon....
Billy, great textures and such restraint ...wow.
as a group you guy have a real Telepathic Approach ....
I have to say the interplay is astounding.....

I used to love when Dizzy would introduce the members of his band on stage
they would all get up and shake each others hands like they were metteing for the first time...........


Kenny

My apologies, guys. Somehow I must've missed a notice that I'm enjoying more comments over here!

ed_mcg - Thanks for participating, brother Ed! You're obviously a very integral part!

fep - Them is cowboy chords?!?

mcourter -

I'd love to see you guys get together in Hollywood at the Baked Potato.

Me, too; but I think we'd need more material! Thanks for listening!

hornplayer - A rose by any other name, my brother! I always figured the "harmonic" bit referred to the step and a half between the 6th and 7th scale degrees -- as is characteristic of harmonic minor, right?

airmeki - Thanks, Heinz! We appreciate you listening! Thanks for the positive words.

coldsteal2 - Back atcha, 'steal!

marcos69 -

The first sax run scared my cat but we really enjoyed all of it.

OMG! Easily my favorite comment, to date! Frickin' sax run scared my cat!

RLD - Thanks for checking it out, Roger! It's a Celebrity acoustic-electric that I kludged up by putting nylon strings on. It actually records pretty well, I think. Jeff M. sent it 'cross-country claiming he bought it but never learned to play it.

Marko - Thanks, Marko! Sorry you had to go shovel! (I'm waiting for ours to melt!)

kennywtelejazz - Thanks, Kenny! Yes, I'm very proud of how nicely this turned out - particularly since it was an internet collaboration (vs. live). I like the nylon-string sound, too - which was a lot of the motivation for doing this. We have another one in the works. . .

Simon Cowell - Simon, my man! Thanks for checking it out. . . I think. . .

Now, my year-old daughter, Olivia, starts dancing when I play!

Ooh, nice! You can't top that. My daughter cringes and goes, "Ick, jazz!" when I play. Our cat, however, doesn't mind.

Thanks, Cliff! Appreciate it.

Beautiful peace with some soulful playing. Very classy.

I kept hearing an alternative to the nylon, though... for at least some parts, a fretless six-string bass, played upper-mid neck for those lines. Also, to my ears, sometimes the bass isn't holding up in this arrangement...it's not "big" or sonically potent enough to bear up under mids and highs—both of the latter much richer and somehow bigger to my ears. It's kind of like the bass is playing in another room or wasn't mastered with the rest of the mix or something. What do you think?

Nice work.

Best,

Mark