THE BEGINNING OF FROLIC IN THE LAND OF PLENTY
This album got its start way back in the spring of 2004 when I was teaching at Ithaca College in New York State. www.ithaca.edu/bassoon/ . I was in the middle of trying to get my Masters Degree-which I still haven't gotten yet-
and raising kids, playing and recording with Zenith Patrol, DAVKA, and a few other groups. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to teach at such a great music department and learn a little bit more about the "younger generation" as it were.
It takes a lot of courage to realize one is definitely not the "younger generation" anymore even though you feel the same inside as you did when you were 25. That's a different story-back to the subject. The "kids" (there I go again) were fantastically motivated students and I learned probably as much about teaching as they did about music. At that time-spring 2004-Zenith Patrol's music was just getting out there with the "VU" album ready to come out. It came to me that was time to release a new album since VOODOO SUITE was about 3 years old and I didn't want to wait as long as I had to make that album from the one previous (ASTRO BOY BLUES-1994).
WHAT WAS THIS GOING TO BE?
I wanted this album to be different from VOODOO SUITE. I wanted to utilize modern recording techniques to do something that was equal parts composition, improvisation-and that was a real STUDIO album, yet with a lot of life.
Think of the things one could do with modern recording technology when it comes to really utilizing what's available.
One artist that did so and does so for me is Bobby McFerrin. His album "Medicine Man" is an album that is songs made up of vocal tracks. No drums, no guitar, no keyboards-just voice doing everything. I initially started out with this being the way I wanted to do this album-bassoon as EVERYTHING. There are some tracks on the album that represent this ideal but a lot has changed over the last 3 years-these tracks are in the minority.
STARTING THE PROJECT
So between my work load at Ithaca and teaching I started to write sketches just by playing some ideas on bassoon and writing them down. I remembered a few ostinatos I used to play when I was back in school myself (inspired by the academic setting I guess) and I wrote them down. Back in Berkeley for the summer-I started writing more on my Korg keyboard/sequencer and putting things together in Digital Performer on my old G4 running OS 9. Having worked with Haroun on Zenith Patrol music, I really enjoying the chance to work with a great engineer and producer-but this time more as a co-collaborator. The great thing about this was the time we had to try different things-like different microphones, how many mics, where to put them, how to amplify the electric stuff, what kinds of speakers to put the feed through, what kinds of different pre-amps and plug-ins, etc. Although there was so much we could have tried-we didn't dawdle too much as by the end of summer 2004 we had about 4 new tunes started along with 4 movements of J.S. Bach's Cello Suite #4 in Eb. I had a few other sketches that we didn't start work on that remain unworked on.
LIFE GETS BUSY
Pretty soon-other gigs and projects came into the picture and kept this album prominent but on the back burner. My son
Zach was born in 2005; anyone with new children can understand how crazy life can get and how hard it can be to get things done. I did a little bit of recording and searching around for material (like Parallax by the New Zealand composer
Leigh Jackson) as well as trying to write. But I just didn't get as much done. Also-we moved about 4 months after Zach was born. Right before we moved I auditioned for Cirque Du Soleil and knew that something was coming-I just didn't know what. The first gig they offered me didn't excite me. Then-in September 2005 they wanted me for SALTIMBANCO as a sax/bassoon/EWI/keyboardist. OK-I auditioned again-it was a really easy audition because I got to basically record R&B/fusion sax solos over tracks they sent to me. As a father-I wanted to support my family by being a working musician rather than just some crazy creative bassoon player doing crazy records and running my own show. At that time it was the right move to try to get this gig where my family could come on the road with me and receive the great treatment that Cirque is known for. So-in September and early October 2005-we were still moving into our new house as we had some gigantic projects both in moving almost 40 years of Hanson-family possessions either into storage, our new house or the trash. The family had been there since 1969 so there was a lot of history-we also started renovating the house to get it ready as a rental. My dad worked overtime to help us (at 75 he worked harder than most 30 year-olds) do this as we had our new kid, my new gig and I was leaving on tour-first without my family as they'd be split between being on tour and being at home. Finally-in November 2005-I started being on the road nearly constantly until January 2007. Here's my tour blog from my Cirque tour. There just was no time to devote to recording the album.
GETTING BACK INTO IT
During a tour break in July 2006-I came home and bought Logic Pro-recording software for Mac computers. I used it when I went back on the road for recording pre-production tracks for the record. Later on-you will hear about tracks I recorded in Sao Paulo that made it onto the record. There's not many that did but one in particular did. Since Haroun is an expert and savvy Logic Pro user-it made our working together a lot easier. In February 2007 I started to move down the line doing tunes I finally decided on using for this record. There was a bunch of music that I first recorded and performed with a project called the Balkan Brazilian band back in 1995 when I got an NEA grant. It basically evolved around music that had eastern european-styled melodies, funky rhythms, and harmony derived from the modes of the eastern european melodies. I tried to stay with this formula but a few times (when I felt it really called for it) I'd change the harmonic/melodic "law" to allow for some exceptions to the rule. I wasn't trying to be a purist but just to use what worked for me and made the tune feel unique-that's about all I can explain.
MAKING UP TIME AND USING NEW TECHNOLOGY TO BUILD AN ALBUM
Starting in February-I'd go down to Haroun's new studio in Burlingame CA and lay bassoon tracks for this project. I also started a whole new phase of recording that would not have been possible a few years ago. I sent music and backing tracks to different performers across the New World by email or uploaded it on my server. Using the internet-musicians could download my music session and record their efforts at their homes. Then-they'd send them back to me either using snail mail or the internet. This is the way I could get Caito's pandeiro from Sao Paulo, Tracy Silverman's violin from Nashville and Armen's keyboard playing from LA.
These people have distinct musical personalities that really added to the music. It would have been great to do this all in person but the technology's there to do the next best thing.
OLD-SCHOOL (sort of) RECORDING
I also did a session the old-fashioned way-by playing live in the studio with a group. This was done at Jeff Cressman's studio in San Francisco. Jeff does a lot of recording for the Bay Area jazz community-when he's not playing trombone with Santana. After this session-I went back into the process of recording bassoon and eventually we were ready with four tunes for the last bit of live recording in a bigger studio. Unlike the live sessions in Jeff's studio-this time we recorded instruments on top of my bassoon parts and pre-production parts. We recorded Dennis Chambers playing drums with Vic on bass and Eric Levy on Fender Rhodes. Eric played alongside other pre-production keyboard parts. Those pre-production parts were replaced at about the same time with Armen's keyboard parts. It felt like building a house. Planning the interaction that happens playing live at a concert was an issue we felt we had to tackle so things didn't sound too sterile. To do this I left out my solos until the session-then I played interacting with the musicians just like a normal gig. I didn't have to worry about playing melodies since they were already recorded. I also made sure overall with this album not to have this be the only approach-I am very glad there are a few different approaches to recording on this album.
So-basically, that is where we are now. We are just mixing as of this writing and planning to get this first 6-tune CD out
in a few weeks. That's the story.
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