November 03 2008
OK. A blog shouldn't be marketing propaganda. If I want to sell you my new Cd, I should hawk it elsewhere.
But it come not to praise 'The Bestseller' (or to bury it- I have to watch it when I quote Shakespeare...) only to explain it.
Y'see, I'm mighty proud of it. Not just the music. I hope it speaks for itself. But for the ideas that form and inform 'The Bestseller'.
Back up. 'The Bestseller' is my 6th recording. It's a duo recording, with me on piano (natch) and Sasha Boychouk on clarinet. There are 12 tunes on the CD, mostly originals, 2 on piano alone. There are also 9 Interludes. These are improvisations Sasha and I did on the song 'Sashagraha' which I composed for him. ('Sashagraha' does not appear itself on the Cd.)
I named the CD after a literary genre to reflect the chemistry Sasha and I have. The recording is a bestseller, because it's a "Romance between a Canadian Piano and a Ukrainian Clarinet", as the official subtitle of the CD puts it.
Sasha and I first played when he arrived in Toronto about 4 years ago. It was musical love at first sound. I think you can hear this on the CD.
Also to reflect the literary reference, I asked a wonderful Canadian writer and librettist, Val Brandt to write a mini-story. So Val made up 9 epigrams, 9 short sentences. Each one is attached to an Interlude. Together, they make up the story, the narrative of 'The Bestseller'.
I hope people pick up on this, and find 'The Bestseller' pleasing to the mind as well as the ear (and thanks to the great cover artwork by Zab Design, the eyes too.)
Does anyone care about these types of things? Epigrams, and literary references? Is it just mental onanism, or is it part of the art? My answer is obvious.
It brings me delight to think of the ideas underlying 'The Bestseller'. They add layers. Wittgenstein said that something is profound when it embodies the idea of something else. 'The Bestseller' and the story attached to it evokes something else. Something more than just the music.
I hope 'The Bestseller' evokes something else for you. And I hope this post has stimulated something else in you. Like the impulse to buy 'The Bestseller.'
- To buy The Bestseller, click here...
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A brilliant adventure. On his latest recording, My Mother's Father's Song, Ron Davis embraces both his family's rich cultural heritage, and boldly re-engages with the jazz standard.
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