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During my Master's degree studies at the University of Montreal, I wrote a paper detailing the process and techniques I used in composing and arranging music for my sextet. Over the next few months, I'll be sharing excerpts from that paper in a series I'm calling Composition Journals. In celebration of the release of my new album. In This Moment this week, I'm sharing some insights on how I went about composing the title track. *** IN THIS MOMENT (follow along with the lead sheet ) I wrote an initial draft of In This Moment early on in the process of preparing the record, but was fairly unsatisfied with the results and only after returning to it months later with new harmonic ideas was I able to make progress, eventually arriving at this finished form. Following an 8 measure introduction, the tune proper consists of a 72 measure AABAC form [16, 16, 8, 14, 18]. The basis of this form is an AABA with a B half the length of the A sections, however the final cadence of the

During my Master's degree studies at the University of Montreal, I wrote a paper detailing the process and techniques I used in composing and arranging music for my sextet. Over the next few months, I'll be sharing excerpts from that paper in a series I'm calling Composition Journals. In celebration of the release of the first single Lost in The City , from my new album In This Moment , I wanted to start with a look at how that tune came together. For a less technical perpective, check out my playlist of inspirations. Also please save Lost in the City to help it gain traction with the all powerful algorithm. *** LOST IN THE CITY (follow along with the  score  and recording ) This piece is solidly in the hard bop idiom and draws inspiration from a few minor key jazz compositions of the period; Bobby Timmons’ Dat Dere , Sonny Clark’s Dial S for Sonny , and Grant Green’s Matador . The chorus is 40 measures in AABA form [10, 10, 8, 12], where the last A features a 2 measu

Music is often described as a language, and while this has become a cliché, it is not without good reason. True, music has the capacity to communicate where words cannot, but it is the more literal application of this notion that is of interest here. The elements of a language — vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and idioms — are all found in music and here on their debut recording, the collaborative trio Im / Herridge / Lacombe ably demonstrate their fluency. At the risk of over-extending the metaphor, this album sounds like a conversation, unfolding through rhythmic punctuation, harmonic suggestion and melodic description, between fine musicians, listening attentively and with a deep respect for one another, equally ready to take the lead or lend their support as the music requires. Still there is another conversation which threads throughout this recording that is even more revealing; the dialogue between these musicians and the tradition and legacy of the piano trio. Even a cursory gla

There's an experience that I think is pretty common with regard to the first few tunes a musician learns. We learn them as we're just beginning to learn to improvise and so they become associated with a sense inarticulateness, dissatisfaction, and because for a good while we know only a handful and play them over and over, they begin to feel stale. Worse still, these are some of the most frequently played tunes and so they're likely to remain inescapable for the foreseeable future. What happens next is usually that we begin to think of these tunes as a drag, become reluctant to play them, and may even put them down or blame them for our own shortcomings as improvisers. A perfect example of this is Blue Bossa, by all objective measures a really great tune by a great composer, Kenny Dorham, recorded by an all-star band, which certainly doesn't deserve all the disrespect it gets at jam sessions. I remember falling into this trap a few times over the years, including with A

My first real encounter with Benny Golson's music happened around 2014, in a record store, in a strip mall, in an Ottawa suburb, of all places. It was a day off from a short run of dates in the area with saxophonist Chris Maskell's band and we were killing time. I stumbled across a record I'd never heard of before, Turning Point . Benny Golson with the Wynton Kelly Trio. I was familiar with Golson's playing on Blakey's Moanin' and knew the handful of his tunes that are inescapable ( Whisper Not, Along Came Betty, Stablemates, Killer Joe, etc . ) but I hadn't yet gotten around to checking out his playing or writing in any great depth. A quartet date with my all-time favourite rhythm section seemed like an ideal place to start, and as the cliché goes, from the first notes of the record — a fantastic break into the head of How Am I To Know —   I was hooked. I've had a major love affair with the record ever since, and have continued digging into Benny Gols