Berkeley Sprung (Bebop horn player's delight)

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Cafe Elixir (Bossa Nova-ish, conventional form asymmetrically structured)

Chaplin (Something of his character)

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Little Night Waltz, A (Lively waltz with chromatic and tritone cadences and the "oM")

Satie (Mostly of his musical spirit)

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Village Scene (Monkish)

 

An April Piece  (lively waltz with chromatics and some unusual chord juxtapositions)

Thornbird (2 pg.) (Features the oM [diminished major])

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Threnody for an Unborn Child (3 pg.) (Music of lamentation, features the lydian)

Dark Song (2 pg.) (A cry of despair, featuring the oM)

Fat Butterfly (2 pg.) (The hidden price of fireworks, mainstream)

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[Instrumental version only]

Never Quite Say (2 pg.) (Satire, latinish, features the lydian)

Shepherd, The (2 pg.) (The sufering Shepherd, bossa nova)

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[Instrumental version only]
Spirit in Me (2 pg.) (also recorded on 88 Keys And Counting as "Spirit Inside."  Rhythmic tritone in 4 and a waltz)

Thornbird (2 pg.) (Australian legend as Messianic metaphor, features the oM)

Village Scene (2 pg.) (An imaginary village of artists, a stride-dancing, monkish tune)

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Was She Really There? (2 pg.) (Lost love, extensive chord sequences, expansive form)

Words We Say (2 pg.) (Homelessness, a waltz)

If the music that is out there were entirely satisfactory, there would be no point for me to be involved in making it.  I know there are those who are satisfied with repeating and imitating what others have made.  In jazz, even when improvisating upon another's original material, and after respecting the composer's paradigm, to merely copy, however, is to miss the point of the improvisator's craft.  In jazz, as it has been historically for serious composers, major points are freshness, personal expression, and artistic contribution to the craft.             

There can be intellectual rigor to jazz, which can be expressed in its harmony.  It can be a field of serious artistic endeavor.  True, jazz begins with the physical.  First comes the dance, then thought.  First the felt-within followed by observation and analysis.  But, harmony helps to give the dance of jazz greater scope, and advanced harmony a yet wider landscape of improvisating possibilities.             

Harmony is the bringing together of disparate elements into balance.  In the structured paradigms with line that I make for improvisating, it has long been my purpose to broaden the music’s harmonic landscape.  This is tempered by the play-ability of a form and its content.  Pure 12-tone technique, for example, would not do.  It must capably serve the improvisating process of jazz.             

A number of composers with jazz sensibility have made advances along this line.  I’m thinking of Billy Strayhorn, for one, in Lush Life; Charles Mingus’s 20th Century foray into the blues with his Goodbye Porkpie Hat; Lennie Tristano, for another, in his efforts, especially in his teaching, to break free of standard scaletone tonality and resolve.  And others, of course.  And we are already familiar, in the playing of Bill Evans and the leadership of Miles Davis, for instance, with the influence upon jazz of 20th century French composers.  I have also noticed a number of songs coming out of, or hearing from, Brazil that seem responsive to this thread, The Dolphin by Eca, for one.             

A feature uppermost in my composing has to do with the chord sequence of a piece.  Standard scaletone resolves and sequences have become, well, too much standard fare.  And improvisating upon one or two chords for extensive periods ultimately palls.             

I regularly look to make unexpected but logical connections in the sequence of chords I set to a piece or song.  Such are not fancifully chosen.  Only according to strict standard scaletone rules, might some of the sequences seem random.  But, when chromaticism is brought into the picture, their logic is quickly apprehended.             

An A^lyd moving to an E^b7^sus, for instance, may seem, according to standard scaletone rules, to be an arbitrary juxtaposition.  But, it is not.  On the surface there might appear to be at least three notes needing to be moved between the two chords.  But, viewed chromatically, that is not entirely necessary.  The A, B, and E, for example, of the A chord can easily work as, respectively, the augmented 4th, augmented 5th, and the flat 9th of the E^b chord.  Besides, such seeming ambiguities can serve as grist in the jazz process.             

Being a composer of paradigms for instrumental jazz improvisating, I also craft songs, additionally creating the lyric of a song for music that occasionally reflects the musical influences of 20th Century classical, while maintaining a melody line that is lyrical and accessible to an average listener.

Please write for permission to use specific original material in public performance, which is normally granted.  Copyright ownership is retained.  Please send a copy of any program that indicates publicly performed original material connected to JazCraft or G. F. Mlely.  Commercial release must show author's name and copyright ownership.  

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