Hey All,
Here’s an old video post of the Al McKay Allstars you might dig:
Peace out,
Ben
Benny Blog
Live Video – Al McKay Allstars
July 13th, 2010A Touch of Brazil
July 5th, 2010I’ve totally fallen in love with Brazilian harmony. I don’t know what it is – maybe the lovely minor 7th flat 5 chords and the way that they pivot to new harmonic centers – or what, but it’s an amazing thing.
My first exposure was to Milton Nascimento on Wayne Shorter’s record Native Dancer, but it has stuck with me all these years.
So Sarah Song is the song of the week. First of all, here’s the link:
It’s from the World Rising release, and it required that I get over myself and sing. It’s funny how hard it is for me to own it. I’m really a rather good singer, but I’ve preferred to hide out for all these years.
Ever do that?
I sure have…
Peace and love,
Ben
A Faustian Improv…
June 28th, 2010This week, I’m sharing a movement from an improvisation session I did with Berlin Philharmonic principal cellist, Georg Faust.
So first of all, here’s the link:
Here’s the story: I met Georg on a plane to Oslo, Norway. I was sitting in the emergency row, and he was sitting in the emergency row. We started talking about life and the world. Come to find out that he’s a cellist – and that has my attention. Then find out he’s with possibly the best orchestra on the planet – the Berlin Phil. Wooo!
So, we compare notes about life and music and really hit it off. On the way out of the plane, I gift him a copy of World Rising and let it go. No real thought of a musical relationship, but a generous heart is a very good thing.
About 5 months later, I hear from him that the Berlin Phil is coming to LA for a performance at the Disney Hall. So we agree to grab lunch on the Venice boardwalk. I found Georg to be a kindred spirit – how music is a spiritual practice and how important it is.
I suggest that “sometime” we should get together musically. He agrees. We walk back toward his hotel in Santa Monica continuing our discussion. I’m about ready to get into my car, and I think maybe we should just make the music happen on this trip – instead of deferring into the future (something I’ve done too many times in life). So I suggest that we get together and “try some things” the next day – as he’s not needed by the orchestra until the following evening. He agrees.
Next morning, I pick him and his 1703 Italian cello up and bring him back to the house. I’ve arranged a piano tuning and set up the ProTools system to record everything at 96K/24Bit (which is the best quality anyone could ever want). And we play. For about an hour.
He’s surprising me with his musicality and experimental nature – something that does not come easily to many ‘classical’ players. And we record it all, then pack up and I bring him back to the hotel.
And that’s it. He heads out for Hawaii after his Disney Hall performance, and I go back to the struggle.
I’m constantly amazed how music can just erupt into the extraordinary with the simplest tools. And now we can capture that magic as it happens.
Life truly is grand.
Do you feel it?
Peace and love,
Ben Dowling
PS:Â To hear more of the session, click here…
Radio Interview
June 21st, 2010Hey All,
I just was interviewed on It’s Rainmaking Time. I think you might like it. Here’s the link:
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2010/bendowling/
Peace,
Ben
Nature Boy – Familiar Contemplation
June 20th, 2010First of all, here’s the download link:
Nature Boy Contemplative DL Link
So, I’ve been thinking about a series of popular melodies within a similar stream. What do you think? Is there a demand for it? What kind of themes would interest you?
Comment below…
Peace and blessings,
Ben
Love Embraces All – This Week’s Freebee…
June 14th, 2010This post is about the song “Love Embraces All” off of the “World Rising” CD.
First of all, here’s the download link:
The Story:
Love Embraces All brings several elements together that make it work as a song. On a musical level, it is clearly a chord cycle within the R&B tradition, but with chords that are a little out of the ordinary.
The lyric was inspired by something I was reading: a newspaper story about girls in Southeast Asia being sold into prostitution by their parents. As the loving father of a daughter, such a concept is totally shocking to me, but I need to look beyond my reaction or I lose track of the real, shut down – and in so doing I’m prevented from making a creative contribution when and where it actually is possible.
So after a little internal work… I decided to craft a message that speaks to the all-beingness and all-inclusiveness of love: that it is everywhere and is encoded in all of us, no matter what we may have done in the past. So it’s a song of self-forgiveness – for everyone in the situation. And I think it is the strongest song I’ve ever written.
The Music
The way this started was from Rickie Byars Beckwith’s daughter Georgia Muldrew. As an early teen, Georgia started to write R&B song cycles with unusual, interesting, jazz-inspired chordal structures. It just wasn’t in the rap/R&B world at that time. So she reminded me what made music so interesting to me – harmony. Because if you have an interesting harmonic backdrop, then simple cool melodies can come forth that are amazing. Also, it was inspiring because this was in a modern, “beats”- driven context.
So I had permission to return to my roots.
I came up with the basic chord cycle, not knowing where it was going. I created a demo with melody that had an early Herbie Hancock sextet sound – sort of reminiscent of Herbie’s Crossings (early 1970’s) vintage but without the horns.
For the lyric, I asked myself what the extraordinary Carl Anderson would want in a song. Carl had been a friend for over 10 years at the time, and we had done many performances and vocal workshops together – I as his accompanist. He was interested in the story of a song. It was about story telling, and about touching the audience with the personal meaning behind the song.
So the lyric had to tell a story, and a powerful one.
The Bridge (or Middle 8), was a slight departure from the chord cycle, with lyrics that were kind of dark – contrasting with the positive nature of the verse lyric. I played it for Rickie BB – who is an absolute world-class songwriter – and she suggested that I rework the Bridge lyric more positively. So she helped redirect my efforts which was what I needed and was very kind of her.
Originally, the Bridge didn’t have a modulation, but when I finalized the lyric “Change” on the second half, it made total sense to amplify that meaning with a change in key.
I called Carl – who was on his final tour with Jesus Christ Superstar – emailed the song to him asking him to record it. He emailed back saying he loved it, and we would do it upon his return to LA. Unfortunately, Carl was taken ill with leukemia a month later, and came home to the hospital and never came out. I saw him briefly at Agape, but the disease was stronger than he was, and I never saw him again.
I was crushed by the loss of my friend. I couldn’t listen to his voice without tearing up.
So the song sat on the computer, with no where to go.
Then, a year or so later, Korg contacted me about doing a demo for the new Oasys keyboard – which I had helped in the voicing (sound development) for. I thought that a song production might demonstrate the capability of this very best keyboard ever. Korg agreed, and I generated the first production featuring the horn and vocal section of the Al McKay Allstars (trumpets: Mike Harris and Rahmlee Michael Davis from Earth, Wind & Fire; saxophone: Ed Wynne and trombonist and horn arranger Windell Kelly, vocals: Devere Ducket, Tim Owens and Claude Woods). All the other instrumental sounds were from the factory sounds of the instrument.
Here is the link to that version featuring the astounding lead vocal talent of Tim Owens:
Love Embraces All (Oasys version) DL Link
But, for me, I wasn’t home yet with the song. I mean the Oasys version was good, but I felt that I needed to honor the song with a production that fully flushed out my inspiration. To do that, I needed re-think the production and to sing the song. Carl Anderson always said that everyone has a voice, and that he believed in the importance of that voice. So I knew what I needed to do, but was worried about whether it would stand up to the extraordinary singers I work with constantly. I just wanted to hide!
Fast forward, I created 4 or 5 different versions of the song so I could find the “center” of the song from an arrangement standpoint. That way, I could defer the decision on the lead vocal (still hiding). I settled on the version you have heard, and finally got the gumption to give the vocal a shot.
When I cut the instrumental track, I suggested to Will Kennedy to “channel Elvin Jones,” for the drum aspect. My horn arrangement is reminiscent of the Herbie Hancock sextet sound from the early 70’s, and the vocal performance tries hard to honor what brother Carl shared with the world.
I’m relieved that I was able to deliver the song, and I’ve learned a lot about music and life through the process of this song.
I really hope that you like it.
Peace out,
Ben
The Credits Theme
June 7th, 2010First, here’s the link:
And now, here’s the story…
I got a call from someone at ABC Pictures about a movie of the week, and that they wanted someone to score the thing. Since I figured I’d at least be heard this time around, I sat down with a Jan Hammer score that they wanted to emulate. It was on cassette – so you know this was a long time ago…
In any case, my first task was to assemble the “sound set” for the score – in this case orchestral strings, french horn section, snare drum, timpani, piatti cymbal and various synth sounds. This is always my first step when I’m going for a score, since the orchestration needs to fit with the subject matter.
Now of course this was a demo, so I didn’t have live players for this demo. That would have come later, if they accepted me as the composer. So everything you hear are samplers (remember those?) and synths. You probably hear a little Wavestation in there. FYI, I helped develop that synth and it stands as one of my biggest contributions to the Korg legacy.
Anyway after surrounding myself with the sounds, certain harmonies and rhythmic stuff began to suggest itself. I might start with a synth drone and see what kind of harmony suggested itself off of that, create the harmonic progression and then await the melody to come forth. Standard stuff.
For the Credit Theme (only defined as that later), the synth pedal-point offered a harmonic opportunity – to create tension through dissonances against the key center (I love that!). When the melody came in the form of the top of the voicings of the string part, I was pretty sure I had something good.
Anyway, that’s basically it. I had the wonderful and talented Steve Harrison come over and mix the result and sent it to ABC Pictures. While they turned me down, my good friend Jeff Rona ended up with the gig, so not all was lost.
In any case, I think the melody and harmony are still strong after all this time. Anybody got a military industrial complex tragic story to tell?
Peace,
Ben
Jamaica Jazz Festival Next Week!
June 4th, 2010I just was contacted to do a “teach-in,” concert and symposium in Kingston, Jamaica next week. I fly out on the 12th returning the 17th. I’ll be sure to file some pics and more from there!
Peace!
In My Dreams – This Week’s Freebee
May 29th, 2010For those interested, here is a link to In My Dreams:
The song is a vocal-style instrumental from my most recent jazz record, World Rising. Â Bob Sheppard plays soprano sax and my daughter Sarah (at 12!) is playing the cello part.
The song started from a harmonic jump from G minor to Eb minor and back again that I was improvising with the piano outlining the chords and grew from there. So, harmony first, then melody suggested itself. The B section took a little longer. I was interested in using voicings of major and minor 6ths in the left hand – which are a little unusual for jazz. The descending motion of the harmony seemed almost Brazilian to me, and the melody suggested itself from there. I love the turnaround from the B section back to the G minor.
This was originally conceived of as a vocal song, which made the melody phrase like it does. Many of my songs are conceived as vocal songs – but few have had lyrics successfully put to them (I’m really picky that way). My growth path is to feel more comfortable with the lyric writing process. I do have a good sense of what works and what doesn’t, and it’s not like I can’t communicate with words – so it’s got to be a creative block of some sort.
The piano solo is trying to float over fixed quarters, 8ths, 16ths, triplets, etc. So a few complex subdivisions here and there. In a world of quantized parts, I’m making a directed effort to avoid melodic content that can be quantized (rhythmically corrected – as most stuff is these days). I want to go “non-linear” with the rhythm so that it flows over the very deterministic groove underneath (all live, no quantizing) – stirring up an alternative set of cross-rhythms. The whole floating thing over a deterministic groove is very powerful – creating a sense of heart. Don’t know if that make sense to anyone other than me, but there you go!
All that said, I hope you enjoy!
Peace and love,
Ben Dowling
Change gonna come – Time for Free Music?
May 18th, 2010Dear Friends,
I sent out the following letter about my decision to gift most of my music to the world. I’d love your input, since it is an important shift for the creative community. Lots of differences of opinion in this regard, but that’s the nature of the moment and of change.
Share your ideas on the Artist Blog. All thoughts are welcome.
Peace,
Ben
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My Dear Friends,
As you know, I’m a piano player who has embraced technology throughout my adult life. Whether it was synthesizer design, digital recording or experimenting with alternative creative elements in new ways – I was there.
You probably also know that the planet has shifted in the realm of content creation – for the written word, for film & video, and for music. Technology has allowed for so much freedom and so much expansion in such positive ways. But it also has created an atmosphere of free content – so prevalent – that there is little incentive to spend hard earned resources to create new works within the old model.
“Change is gonna come…” as Donny Hathaway (or Sam Cook?) sang.
So the only real question is, how do we respond to this new environment? Do we turn away from excellence in music, because the way of the world no longer seems to care? Is that really serving the highest and best for all concerned? Is there more good in the world because we’re conforming to the conditions of the world?
These are serious questions, with serious implications.
As an artist, I have always raised the bar higher – cool harmony, better production, more heart, more groove, finding new alternative approaches to take things to the next level. That’s the model that I know and the model that I believe in.
As you can hear beneath my words, I’ve made my choice already. But ‘change is gonna come,’ which means things will be different now. Our relationship will change – and though there’s no guarantee – I have a sneaking suspicion it will be one of the most exciting shifts in the history of music making.
So here goes:
Free Music
Firstly, I’ve decided that the proper response to apparent scarcity is generosity. So, I’m going whole-hog and giving my music to you all. I’m “paying forward.” When you visit bendowling.com you will be able to download almost all of my music for free. In the end, I decided that it was more important to share the music and have it heard, than protecting it, defending it and leveraging it. That just felt so contrary to the creative flow. And if it ever was a valid model, it certainly isn’t anymore.
Yes, naturally I am still selling CD’s and iTunes downloads, and I absolutely urge you to purchase them.
But I’m trusting that you know better than I what the true value of music is in your life, and that you can be entrusted to make the proper choice. So if that means you pay nothing, then I’m OK with that.
Sounding Board
In return, I need you to be my sounding board. I need to be able to bounce musical ideas off of you, so I can understand what really works from a listener’s perspective. I need to post music that has not been released and find out if there is an audience for it. I need to keep myself from wasting my time on musical approaches that just don’t matter. In the past, I had to make these creative choices in a vacuum. I would put my best effort forward and hope for the best. And – as far as that went – it was a good thing. But it was not an efficient way of working, and these new times demand that we are very, very efficient.
The good news is that this is now pretty easy to do. For you it will mean periodically visiting the web site, downloading, listening, pointing, clicking and commenting. That’s pretty much it.
But I am asking for your attention. I ask that you actually listen, so you can give me feedback that makes a difference. And I ask that you share it among your friends and loved ones (via Facebook or wherever) – if you think it’s up their alley. I also ask that you occasionally purchase a song or project that you believe in, and then take a moment and fill out a review on CD Baby, Amazon or iTunes so the music has a prayer of being heard beyond our little circle.
Because I’m confident that when the music is heard, it will be appreciated and take on a life of its own.
One never truly knows, but this just feels right to me.
So I thank you for your attention and your friendship. This is an exciting moment for me because I’m risking an old way of being – and can’t wait to see the second act!
Peace and many blessings,
Ben Dowling
Pianist · Composer · Music Director · Producer
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Free Music Now!
I’ve been working hard to create a site where I can easily share music and we can have an easy back and forth with each other.
Creativity is such an astounding process, so I needed to create an environment that was as “frictionless” as possible for both of us.
Technically, it has a bit of a challenge, but I think we’re nearly there. There are now multiple ways that we can share and communicate without becoming obnoxious.
SO DO VISIT THE NEW WEB SITE:
http://bendowling.com
There is a ton of music for free download and more on the way:
- World Rising – the smokin’ new jazz record with all-star cast
- Ahimsa – contemplative solo piano par excellence. An Agape favorite…
- Improv Session with Georg Faust – my livingroom session with principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra – very cool!
- Exceprt from Mothers of Invention keyboardist Don Preston and myself: Music for Two Pianos…
- Video of films and documentaries that I’ve scored. live performance footage…and more…
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Connections
Web Site – The grand central station for downloading new music, getting the inside scoop on new creative efforts, where I’m playing and more… If you want to pick one – this is it.
Twitter – Follow me as I offer up free piano improvisations every couple days…
Facebook – Your one stop where the latest information is consolidated, blog posts, listen to music, twitter feed, etc. Real easy. Become a “fan.”
Artist Blog – I’m very excited about having a blog to drill down into different conversations. I’ll post music, and you can comment on it. Sounds simple, but it’s really profound…
Email Newsletter – Finally, make sure you are subscribed to this email newsletter, since I’ll send really important news that way – like once a month or so.
Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time, and I don’t share your info with anyone. If you got this email forwarded to you, be sure to sign up if you’re interested. You can do that below:
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PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN THE CONVERSATION ABOUT THIS SIGNIFICANT SHIFT IN THE CREATIVE COMMUNITIES. Â THIS IS A HIGH WIRE ACT, AND THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF SUCCESS. Â I’VE DECIDED TO RISK IT ALL TO FIND A NEW WAY. Â NOTHING TO LOSE – EVERYTHING TO GAIN.
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