Start from Silence

"Over the past several years I have been fascinated with exploring increasingly extended and more eclectic compositional forms.

Throughout the process of creating the pieces for this album, I sought to incorporate and balance the aspects of music I love most — dense and open harmonic settings; rhythmic/metric flexibility; pure lyricism and melodic abstraction; primal, visceral expression and controlled, well-considered, logically developed gestures — the diametrically opposed, yet complementary impulses found in Dionysus and Apollo, gods of the creative arts in traditional Greek mythology.

My first principle was to honor the spirit of jazz, not via superficial regurgitation of a currently fashionable "slice" of historical practice, bypassing or disregarding selected periods of development, but rather through deep study of both the cultural tradition and the specific objective musical criteria developed by the masters. Ultimately, I aimed to fuse these cultures, traditions and criteria with my own musical and life experiences. I believe this is the path to creating music that is truly part of our "improvised continuum" of maverick souls, colorful characters and uncompromising warriors.

My wide-angle view of this continuum necessarily includes Miles, Jimi, Wayne, 'Trane, Cobain, EVH & Jaco.

The fundamental "zeitgeist" of the album is revealed in the title and realized in the improvised solo guitar pieces which serve as transitional bridges between the longer and more complex band material. Start From Silence: these words represent the spirit with which I composed the music; in my studio, fully aware, following the direction the music dictated. Silence as the starting point. . . . working outward. No clichés, no easy answers. These are the hallmarks of my favorite musicians, and I dedicate this recording to them with love and gratitude."