Liner notes for the playlist that follows. 

Hopefully these tunes that I have recorded over the years can be listened to and enjoyed without explanation but I will provide some explanation that describes how my playing of these tunes is a bit different. I mostly like doing arrangements of good songs but done in a unique way. Some of these tunes are well played by many great jazz musicians. I am not interested in competing with them. I only want to put a slightly different spin on the songs. Oh, I almost forgot. The other thing about these tunes that is unique is that I play all the parts. (one at a time obviously)

Song #1 – Chan’s Song

Chan’s Song by Herbie Hancock. Used in the movie ‘Round Midnight.

I have always loved Herbie’s tune. When I was trying to decide how to play it I could only find 2 versions of it on Spotify. I thought it should be played in a way that brings out the great melody. I also wanted to stretch out the melody a bit so I decided to change the time signature to 15/8 (4-4-4-3).

Song #2 – Be My Love 

I went back to the 1950 version that tenor Mario Lanza recorded. It just sounds so good played on guitar. I just play the melody twice. It is not the the type of song I want to improvise on. 

 

Song #3 – Close Enough For Love 

My friend Mike Strickland mentioned this Johnny Mandel (who also wrote The Shadow Of Your Smile, the MASH theme, and A Time for Love)tune to me one day and I told him that I had never heard it. I really loved it after hearing it a few times. I took quite a while finding a key and feel that worked. I finally found a good key and found that it worked well in 3/4 time. But a swing feel didn’t work so I made a quasi-Latin feel. Now that is a bit different! The other thing that I’d like to mention is the guitar that is used on this. In fact there are 3 guitar parts – solo in the middle and 2 rhythm parts – one in each ear. (that is also something that isn’t usually done. One more interesting fact is about the guitar. It is a inexpensive ($300) nylon string guitar with a built-in pickup. It gets such a beautiful sound and is so easy to record.