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With You In a Moment

Roger Ebacher

Label: Roger P Ebacher
Released: 2016
Views: 783

Tracks

1) Elevation #1 2) Space Flower 3) Asia Central 4) Within You, Without you 5) Blossoming 6) Message From Charlie 7) Waiting 8) Winter Comes 9) Parallax Pirouette 10) Waltz For the Leaves

Personnel

Additional Personnel / Information

Roger Ebacher: Keyboards, Melody Flute, Casio DH-100 Digital Horn, keyboard triggered bass/strings/harp/percussion samples, programming, vocal & voice.

Album Description

Album Notes Dear Listener ~ This new collection of music is the result of once again taking stock of the harvest from the last year of recording projects. And once more, the real challenge is to try and pull all the elements together into something that feels whole and complete. I seldom have a clear vision of a theme or concept for a release before it happens. I'm always working on a new idea, and often that new idea is quite unrelated to the last thing I was working on. So, establishing the flow and pacing for a group of sometimes disparate compositions can be challenging indeed. I am still amazed by the process when, at the stage of putting a body of work out, a theme manifests itself so organically and clearly. Like my previous releases, "With You in a Moment " is a reflection of my interest in a number of styles and genres. You'll hear the influences of contemporary American jazz, the ethnic music of India and the East, Euro-style chamber jazz, and more in this collection. And while I wouldn't expect everyone to like everything here, I feel confident that there will be at least one selection you will love. And then I will be with you in a moment... Best, Roger E. P.S. A little about the music... ELEVATION #1 You can't depend on it, but it really is great when inspiration parts the high waters for you to expose a complete idea almost all at once. So it was with the basic construction of this driving yet delicate invention. Built on a simple improvised chord progression loop over a hypnotic ethno-jazz groove, I had lots of space for melodic exploration, while at the same time being anchored by the simple strength of repetition...an improviser's dream! SPACE FLOWER I've always loved astronomy, and Iike many young boys I once imagined myself a future astronaut. So I was fascinated to hear recently of the first successful attempts to grow flowers in space. Seeing a picture of a perfect geranium brought to life in a spaceship seemed to me a stellar example of art meeting science! ASIA CENTRAL For as much time as I have spent exploring and learning from the music of other cultures, it surprised me when the music of Central Asia recently appeared on my musical radar. I realized that I knew little about it, and was immediately mesmerized by it as I am by the music of India and the Far East. This piece hopefully captures some of the flavor of the amazing and rich music from that part of the world. WITHIN YOU, WITHOUT YOU At first the concept for my take on this groundbreaking George Harrison composition was to start with a less than verbatim and somewhat freeform rendering of the original chords and arrangement, using a more jazz type of harmony. Listening back after tracking the piano and bass over a percussion track, I became intrigued by all the spaces that were left by keeping the arrangement sparse and direct...so much so that I abandoned my plan to overdub the vocal. Instead, what felt appropriate was to simply read the lyrics aloud, as a poem. The resulting focus on the clear wisdom of Harrison's message rang true for me, and I hope for you also. Many thanks, dear George... BLOSSOMING I've been taken with the stark simplicity of music from the Far East for sometime now, and while I'm not fluent in the vocabulary, I love the dialect. This one is completely improvised, and presented here "warts and all". What it lacks in structural perfection is hopefully made up for in the emotional quality of the sound. MESSAGE FROM CHARLIE When it comes to songwriting, perspiration is a lot more dependable than inspiration. But again, it's great when inspiration does strike and a song just comes to you. Such is the case with this one, which literally came to me in a dream. In the dream, the late sax virtuoso Charlie Mariano was attempting to teach me this melody, which sounded so lyrical to me that I awoke and simply had to get it down before it vanished from memory. Having known both the man and his music, Charlie is always in my memory. This composition feels like his gift to me from beyond. WAITING My piano students will happily tell you that my concept of " random composition" using numbers can often yield very pleasing and musical results. This one was written using numbers (not quite so randomly, but rather loosely based on the numerology of my birthdate) while waiting for my car at a Nissan dealership. Carpe diem! WINTER COMES Originally composed in 1982, "Winter Comes" is unlike anything I've written before or since, and I performed it in concert only a handful of times after it was completed. Recently I revisited it, and the lyrics resonated even more deeply within me now than they did when they came to me while a young man in my twenties....sometimes a song takes decades to feel truly finished. With this new recording the lyrics remain the focal point, but the simplicity of the music creates a tone that to me is inseparable from that message. I hope it takes you somewhere... PARALLAX PIROUETTE First of all, I'm not sure about the meaning of the title, but it does roll off the tongue quite nicely! Beyond that, what you have here is a dance for piano, bass, and electronic horn. WALTZ FOR THE LEAVES The genesis of this piece is once again the fruit of one of my exercises for generating melodies from chord progressions. The result is something of a romantic tone poem for solo piano, with the intent to capture the feeling of eloquent melancholy in the Autumn air. Recorded, mixed, & mastered by Roger Ebacher at Rebach Music Studio, Newburyport, MA Produced by Roger Ebacher Cover Art by "Joe" (aka Maggie-Me on Flikr...thanks for your permission to use your amazing artwork!) Graphic Design by Susan Ebacher

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