I am enjoying making music with the trombone and piano. Since the pandemic I had the time to get the trombone overhaul led after being silent for well over a decade.  It has taken a lot of work to get anyway near being able to play more challenging solo studies. Getting more familiar with each instrument a new style of making music is developing.

I found that too much study and knowledge about the subject is stifling my creativity. I needed to break through the creative blocks by just playing and recording results. With digital recording you can keep everything. The microphone never lies, so it’s useful to track my progress even though listening can be painful. Mixing unrelated sessions and with different material can yield some interesting results from colliding lines melodies and harmonies

Simon H Fell had a positive influence on me getting into modern music and improvisation at school and we were in the same class and had numerous opportunities to jam together in our youth. Steve Kenny and I met at work where we collaborated to make the album, “Elements”, derived from a selection of improvisations recorded on tape. Steve had a free emancipated approach to improvisation influenced by eastern philosophy and encouraged me to be in the moment. I struggled with this concept, being drawn to improvising the safety of convention.

Recently working with the absence of collaboration, a “found object” provided the seed of an idea for this piece. Having found a scrap of music piano written I had written in pencil well over 40 years ago. I thought it might work well on the trombone. I multi tracked the trombone parts to get the piano harmonies to form a splendidly bleak sounding brass band.

Although the original music was just a snippet. It was months later I recorded an improvised piano variation based on the same theme. Mixing material from both tracks together to produce an original piece, which is a little magical and authentic.

The music feels melancholic, there is pathos, and loneliness. It is like a slight chill in the north air at the onset of winter. The opening brass takes your imagination to the northern collieries. The piano arrives with a jazzy laid-back feel. As the brass enters with a countermelody the piano springs into life before moving into meandering lines evoking the emotional journey of life, some optimism, and resolute stoicism.