Revolution Void

Syncretic Beliefs is a solo jazz piano album released December 2006. It is available online in its entirety through the Creative Commons under a license granting free distribution as long as attribution is given.

The album is comprised entirely of jazz compositions. Save for one Hammond organ track, the songs are performed on acoustic piano.

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Links

• Album page at revolutionvoid.com
• Album page at the Internet Archive
• Album page at Jamendo
• Album page at OurMedia

Description

This album contains a selection of recordings from 2005-06. I decided to release this album in the jazz idiom because I am an avid listener of jazz and have been improvising on piano and keyboards since I was 16 years old. However, until this point, I have never released a jazz recording. Partly this is because my main focus has been on electronic music (and 'jam' music ala Medeski Martin & Wood), but the bigger reason is that I have not felt I had anything to say, so to speak. I have focused on learning to speak the language of jazz, but now I feel that I can begin to "put together sentences" and express concepts, to continue the metaphor. So, with that, I invite you to listen to my latest album. The recording quality is not the best, since these tracks were mostly recorded ad-hoc at a number of locations and were originally intended only for personal use. Regardless, I hope you enjoy listening to the album as much as I enjoyed playing it.

Thanks,

-Jonah Dempcy

1. Azurescent
   
   This track makes for a mellow opening to the album. It follows a simple chord progression of sus4 chords with light improvisation, giving it a somewhat "floaty" feel.
   
   
2. Lumen Arcanum
   
   Because this tune follows an A-B-C form, the changes have a circular feel. The tonal center starts at B minor for the A section, goes to A major for the B section and then shifts to Eb minor for the C section, an unusual and surprising chord change (Eb is the exact tonal opposite of A).
   
   
3. Myriad Ways
   
   Like many of the songs on this album, this song was recorded in the first take as an improvisation, without any pre-determined song structure, melody or chord changes. The chord changes follow a simple 8-bar pattern alternating C minor and Eb, the relative major.
   
   
4. Upsurge
   
   A bright, cheerful 12-bar blues. I like 12-bar forms because most of the music I listen to has 32-bar forms, so I grow accustomed to it and sometimes get stuck in the rut of only composing 32-bar forms.
   
   This song stays pretty much true to form for the 12-bar blues. It has a few jazz-blues on-the-fly reharmonizations ala Charlie Parker, but for the most part, it is true to form. However, some 12-bar blues tunes, such as Brad Mehldau's London Blues, have been reharmonized and modified so much as to be barely recognizable as a blues form at all. But, something about the 12-bar form resonates with our unconscious. David Valdez pointed out that there are 12 notes in the scale, so on a higher level of magnitude, 12-bar forms are expressing the progression upwards through the 12 notes of the octave. For more information about this, read David's wonderful post on the topic, Undertones as Rhythm and Form.
   
   
5. Humans in Universe
   
   This is an improvised jam on the Hammond A-100 organ. It has a bluesy sort of feel as well, but follows a looser form that progresses in 4, 8 or 16 bar patterns.
   
   I also include fills which are 2-bar patterns inserted where the 1st bar would normally go. This is something that is much easier to do solo than with a band, though if agreed ahead of time, you can pull it off with a band by cuing them when you want to go to a fill. Good bands to listen to for on-the-fly cuing of fills include Medeski Martin & Wood and James Brown's classic band, The J.B.'s. In particular, the James Brown songs "Payback" and "Hotpants" have great fills.
   
   
6. Reticulating Flux
   
   Another improvised experimental jam. This one gets pretty out there! It is somewhat sloppy but I keep the following maxim in mind: If you aren't making mistakes, you aren't experimenting enough!
   
   
7. Mother Matrix Most Mysterious
   
   A ballad whose title is borrowed from James Joyce. This one is played somewhat a-rhythmically at first, but develops into a slow ballad.
   
   

Labels: jazz, piano