About the 2025 Solo Piano Jazz Suite ‘Clarity of Vision’
As I look back in my early notes of September 2018, after some five years of endless, playing, improvising, composing and arranging on the piano, I noticed that I already wanted to name the three parts of my Stage 6 Jazz Suite ‘Sense of Purpose’, ‘Sense of Direction’ and ‘Sense of Urgency’ respectively. But moving along I skipped these designations, because the three actual parts (solo, jazz trio and bonus) wouldn’t fit these names. But finally they do.
Clarity of Vision
In terms of what I aim for in my music I’ve always had a ‘clarity of vision’. I know exactly what I want and how I want it, and the execution of the various music projects under the wings of the NextSteps Series Solo Projects have always been executed accordingly. Clarity of vision has, by the way, always been a fundamental part of my life, both privately and professionally.
But when you have a clear vision, you need something more. Because a vision alone will get you nowhere.
1. Sense of Purpose
You need a sense of purpose. What are your goals, your objectives? What added value does it pertain? For whom? Without a sense of purpose the entire endeavor becomes a moot point, a random act, something superfluous.
2. Sense of Direction
But a sense of purpose without a sense of direction doesn’t make any sense. Knowing what you want to do but not being able to say where you want to go with it? Why? What’s the point of wandering around aimlessly? So, you need purpose and direction. But that still doesn’t cover it.
3. Sense of Urgency
Without a sense of urgency a sense of purpose and a sense of direction are useless. Because ‘you gotta do what you gotta do’ when you are able to. Now is the time. Knowing what you want to do and where you want to go must be accompanied by a sense of urgency. Take care of it, prepare, assemble, plan, go do, go act, go be! Go, go, go!
That’s clarity of vision. And it has been the story of my life.
Flipping through the pages of my note book I find myself back in February of 2021, smack down in the middle of the Corona Pandemic, contemplating my next moves to compose and arrange my second jazz suite, inhibited by the limitations the Corona virus had bestowed on all of us. I couldn’t go anywhere, not to perform or to find inspiration with other musicians playing.
Just start playing
So, what could I do? Simple: mMe, myself and I and my faithful accustomed Yamaha U1 piano at home is all it takes to start a new music project. I gathered a list of songs and just snapped to it. During 2022 I kept adding songs, rearranging existing compositions, creating new ones, constantly perfecting structure and form. Some songs were added, some were rejected, some just organically merged with other ones or simply withered away.
By august of 2022 I had gathered some 50 songs in my playlist: swing (5), Latin (9), waltz (13), blues (11, also swing) and ballads (13). Another 10 songs ended up in the ‘out-category’ and needed additional work, making the total some 60 songs. I created three clusters as though they were playlists for live performances, with a nice mixture of styles in a ‘logical’ order of playing.
By March of 2023 I thought I had a ‘final list’, but that was premature. It still underwent significant changes, but the heart of the core set of songs kept beating strongly. I kept working on it regularly all through 2023, playing a few hours each day, as I normally do anyway.
Final playlist
By the spring of 2024 I had created a final playlist in three parts, at that time still under the designation ‘Jazz Suite Roots & Reflections II’. I kept finetuning the set lists al through the Spring and Summer of 2024, adding a few brand new compositions, changing some arrangements and changing the sequence of the songs.
I had to keep playing all 60 songs all the time, because everything existed only in my head. I had no scores, only song titles, some chord notations and notes on structure and form. If I didn’t touch all songs daily, details would start to flip and chord sequences and melodies would start to fade. It’s a lot of work, but hey, I love/ live to play, so that’s what I did all through the summer, fall and winter of 2024/2025.
By the spring of 2025 I had reduced the 60 songs to three sets of 15 final contestants as though I was going to publish them in CD format (which I’m not, by the way), and I still wrestled a little bit with the final title of the album and the three separate parts. By the end of May 2025 I was sure: the album was going to be called ‘Clarity of Vision’ and the three parts ‘Sense of Purpose’ (I), ‘Sense of Direction’ (II) and ‘Sense of Urgency’ (III).
At the moment of writing – July of 2025 – I’m preparing the sets for video recording at home. Each song will get one video, showing its final composition and structure, pretty close to how I would like to record it in a professional studio, hopefully before the end of the year, to be published on all streaming platforms.
It has been quite the journey so far, but it has been a lot of fun too. It feels great to build something around an original musical idea and watch it develop and grow over the years. And it is quite satisfying to see my work published for everyone to hear.
Stay tuned for more!
