CD Notes - Delaware River Suite
The Inventions Trio
Bill Mays, Piano; Marvin Stamm, Trumpet & Flugelhorn; Alisa Horn, Cello
This second recording by Inventions is a culmination of three years of playing together as a trio. Besides being a working and recording unit, off the bandstand we’re like family. We really love one another and have lots of fun every time we hit the road together! Our first CD, Fantasy (Palmetto Records 2128), featured my Fantasy for Cello, Trumpet and Piano as well as arrangements and our jazz interpretations of familiar classical themes from Bach to Rachmaninoff. This time around, thanks to a second generous commission from Drs. Howard Horn and Frank Osborn, my Delaware River Suite was born. A piece dedicated to a river? Yes—I love rivers. I love the water. I’m an Aquarian who grew up in close proximity to lakes, rivers, and the ocean. I served four years in the Navy, owned a racing catamaran, and spend several hours a week in our big Jacuzzi-built-for-two!The Delaware is an especially scenic river, and, along with the rich history of the Delaware Valley, Shohola, and surrounding areas, was the inspiration for the suite—a musical journey starting near its headwaters in upstate New York and traversing 330 miles down to the mouth of the Delaware Bay. Having virtuoso musicians in Alisa and Marvin allowed me to write with no limits in terms of range, style, and scope. They were totally at ease with all of it: fanfares, 12-tone rows, free improvisation, boogie-woogie, a jazz waltz, a hoedown, and some “campfire stories” a la Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor!
My chart on “Dance of the Infidels/Sippin’ at Bells” started as a practice tool for piano students—combining two independent melodies to aid in left- and right-hand dexterity and independence. Cello and trumpet join forces with my two hands. Marvin composed the great “shout” chorus that follows the improvisations.
I love Brazilian music, and Jobim’s “Zingaro” has always been a favorite: with its unrelenting chromaticism, yet so very lyrical melody, it lent itself naturally to this instrumentation.
Django Reinhardt’s standard, “Nuages” (Clouds), was one I learned for this project; its title and mood really fit the musical scenery. Marvin and Alisa’s singing quality in their playing and their empathetic phrasing, dynamics, and breathing together bring “Nuages” beautifully to life!
We hope you’ll enjoy the musical journey!
Bill Mays
I never considered when introducing my musical soul mate Bill Mays to the talented young cellist Alisa Horn, whom I have known seemingly forever, that things would turn out as they did. I had hoped that Bill would write a piece for us that we might one day play, but never thought that three years hence this trio would be performing consistently and releasing our second CD. What began as kind of a dream of mine and Alisa’s morphed over time into the reality of The Inventions Trio and much has happened since.
Our first CD, Fantasy was released in August, 2007. The following month the trio struck out on its first tour, performing in the San Francisco area, Southern California, and Washington State to great success. We performed eleven concerts in fifteen days, among which were two nights at Jazz Alley, the well-known Seattle jazz club, three days at the Seasons Festival, a chamber music series in Yakima, and three California universities.
Since this tour, we have also performed at a variety of venues: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Tusten Theater, Narrowsburg, New York; University of California, Fresno, California; Rubin Museum of Art; and the Kitano Hotel Jazz Lounge, in New York City. We also performed as part of the Toronto Jazz Festival at La Belle Epoque in Toronto, Ontario, this past June.
It is fun seeing the reactions of people to two older musicians traveling with a young lady twenty-six years of age. I concocted a number of “off the wall” stories how the group came about and the telling got funnier as the stories went on. But Alisa is accustomed to being among us “more experienced” people and not at all reluctant to “give as good as she gets!” Her humor is really fun, and she jumps right into whatever the situation might be. We “road musicians” find great humor in some of the silliest stuff. This makes life on the road fun—and bearable.
Expanding repertoire is essential to the life of any group. After last fall’s tour, we recorded various material developed since the release of Fantasy, among which are Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasilieras #5,” “Charlotte Delights,” the Miles Davis/Bud Powell classics “Sippin’ at Bells/Dance of the Infidels,” Jobim’s “Zingaro,” and Bill’s new extended work, The Delaware River Suite. Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages” was recorded this past August. Bill has composed or arranged most of the material for this CD. My piece, “Charlotte Delights,” was written for my first grandchild, two-and-a-half years old, who delights my every moment. The song and especially the improvisations reflect the beautiful personality of children this age.
Everywhere we play, we are greeted with surprise to a group that features this “different” instrumentation, but upon hearing our music, the audiences’ reactions to the music are overwhelmingly enthusiastic. People love this group and the music we play. And we love these people for whom we play!
Marvin Stamm
Picture this: You’re 25-years-old. You’ve been playing the cello since you were only four. You just got out of music school a year ago where, for the last six years, you were studying Unaccompanied Bach, the Dvorak Cello Concerto, octaves, and Strauss orchestral excerpts. You have always wanted to be in a major symphony and you secretly dream of touring the world as a soloist. You think that you should just pile on more music degrees because in the end, the only job in music that you might actually get is a professorship at some out-of-the-way college and you will be really fortunate to get that job. You don’t even know if you want to be a teacher because right now all you want to do is PLAY—anything, everything. You believe everything you’ve been told about the music world revolving around pure luck and love for the craft, yet at the same time that it can be grueling, competitive, and unfair, and that unless you find that one music-loving millionaire to marry you that you will be, well, broke. You’ve already lived in Chicago and now you’re sitting in your Los Angeles apartment thinking, “maybe I should try out New York City, too.” And you wonder where you will be in six months.
Now, imagine that you open your eyes and you’re cruising down the highway, sitting in the back seat of a rental car with your cello leaning on your shoulder. You’re on your way from San Francisco where you just played five concerts in a row to San Diego where you will be performing that night. You are thinking about how your walking bass lines in the Bud Powell/Miles Davis arrangement were a little bit behind last night and that tonight they would actually be “in the pocket.” You are listening to Bill Mays and Marvin Stamm (who are sitting in the front seat) talk about life on the road with Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra, that Quicken is the best way to organize your taxes as a freelance musician, what ten jazz recordings are imperative to own, and which bottle of wine under $20 is actually the best bang for the buck. Bill Mays hands you a check for the 10 CDs that you sold the night before and reminds you not to “spend it all in one place”. Marvin is now arguing that he really is the best driver and Bill laughs, cranes his neck around the seat, and says to you, “if it gets any better than this, call me.” They tell you that they love traveling with you, that each night’s concert is better than the night before, and that they are so proud of the group. You think, “How is it possible that I’m on my first road trip performing with two of the world’s greatest jazz musicians? Is this for real?” Well, it is real. It’s my life. That’s what happened to me.
Before we recorded Fantasy in 2006, I never dreamed that one day I would be performing with Marvin and Bill, taking road trips together, and recording such beautiful music. Just as I love Bill’s Fantasy for Cello, Trumpet, and Piano, I adore his Delaware River Suite as well as all of the other music he arranged for this second recording. One of my all-time favorite pieces is “Bachianas Brasileiras” and I am thrilled that Bill arranged the first movement of No. 5 for our group. Originally composed for eight celli and soprano voice, Bill’s arrangement for cello, trumpet, and piano beautifully combines Villa-Lobos’s gorgeous melody with a swinging improvisation section and includes the haunting aria section that the soprano sings in the original version. It is truly a masterpiece!
It’s hard for me to describe the way it feels to be given such an amazing opportunity—not only to play beautiful music with the greatest musicians I’ve ever heard, but to spend time with them, absorb their endless passion and wisdom, have so much fun, and gain two of the best friends I could ever have. I can easily say that playing with The Inventions Trio has been the greatest time of my life so far. In the immortal words of Bill Mays, “If it gets any better than this, call me.”
Alisa Horn