Crossroads: Brooklyn to Berkeley
“Mike is one of the best composers and players around, anywhere, period! This recording is first class with a burning band and material that burns from beginning to end.” — Dave Liebman
(Read more quotes on Michael and Crossroads »)
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Suite Monterey - actually the full title is Suite Monterey 3. This was originally the last part of a three section suite written for the Monterey Jazz Festival performance of Liebman and myself in September, 2003. This third section stands really well on its own - it was probably the most challenging for the other musicians to get together.
Me ‘n Basketball Jones - maybe the happiest tune I’ve recorded, it continues my tradition of writing tunes for my son Maclen. He is a true basketball fanatic and he and I have spent countless hours shooting it around - the only way I can win now is resorting to the Shaq maneuver, but he’ll be taller than me soon enough!
Aral Sea - an incredible piano intro extemporized by Bruce on this one. A truly disturbing article in Harper’s moved me a few years back. It was about an inland sea in Russia named the Aral Sea. This sea, once a thriving source of fishing and recreation, had been environmentally devastated by a callous and rapacious governmental environmental policy, and had shrunk to 1/4 of its original size. Whether or not you subscribe to evolution or one of the various creation myths, we have only one planet, and this was my musical depiction of what reading about the devastation to one of its seas felt like to me.
Changing Tranes - I really love blowing on this one. It feels Coltrane changeish, even though it doesn’t follow any of the traditional Trane “hard change” formulas. Somehow it still has that feel. It was great fun trading with Bruce on the outro of this, and check out Clarence’s drum trades - one of them fools even most musicians I know who have listened to it, but trust me, he’s right ;=}
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Crossroads - the working title for this was Not so Young. It’s a pretty sad song, and one man’s reflections on mortality. The solos by James and Bruce both blow me away on this, and the cymbal work by Clarence is haunting. I really appreciate the care and tenderness with which the band played on this one.
Remember This - drawn from I Remember You, this is completely reimagined, and I think it holds together well as an unusually challenging and varied blowing form, slipping between 4 and 3, floaty, straight, free and Latin-Funky. Not to mention, Dave Liebman makes a guest spot on this and plays his ass off as usual! I get a smile out of the conversation he and I keep going in and out of, a little hint of how we played on the Canadian tour. Lieb is so much fun to play with. I do remember it was the other tune on the session that required some in-studio rehearsing, including setting up a mirror (honest) so I could cue James out of Lieb’s solo.
Solstice Song - Man, do Bruce, James and Clarence channel the spirit of the Trane Sunship vibe on this (just like we asked them to). This is the other song Lieb joins me on, and we played this on our Canadian tour and at Monterey. It is all rubato, and we just follow each other in feeling the next chord.
Tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow) - well, this is NOT the song from Annie -the line continues “creeps in this petty pace, from day to day” the melody is a literal setting to music of the famous speech from Macbeth (you remember - out, out, brief candle). My directions to Clarence on this one were “teen town meets Jack Dejohnette” and of course, he got it and delivered what the song needed - he and I get a little off the hook on this one, so that’s fun.