Written in the rural reaches of central California, where I settled with my teenage son, having recently returned from concertizing in Europe.   We lived next to the Tuolumne River outside of Yosemite National Park.  The lyric, coming after the music, is based upon an Australian legend, of a bird that must pierce itself to death in order to sing a song that stops the world to listen.  It is used here as a metaphor for the Messianic sacrifice.

Thornbird is a landmark piece for me, resulting from time to more carefully explore the possibilities of the music I had been involved with throughout my life - to somehow make workable some of the harmonic practices of 20th century classical music with the improvisating discipline of mainstream jazz.  And further, to make it singable as well.

Thornbird utilizes the oM (diminished major) chord.  In classical music it is identified as an inversion of a 9th chord, voiced from the major 3rd and without its root - the dominant minor 9th with major and minor 3rds - the “VII” chord, referred to with quotes in classical theory, regarded as an incomplete V9 with major and minor thirds.

In jazz, the oM is also a chord we know as a dominant seventh with flat and sharp 9th.  It is given various root names, depending on a tonal center being referred to.  It is the basis of quartal comping by many mainstream jazz pianists.  The reasons I have given the chord its new identity can be found in my book, The 8-Tone Quarto-Modes Concept.

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