At the risk of being redundant, I am mercilessly pursuing a final version of Merciless. This particular edition contains forays into the verse/mid-section looking for the right chords and not finding many of them and ends inconclusively. The first chorus-verse-chorus section is holding together. Trying to evoke a gospel-inflected vibe. Good things come to those who wait.
(from The Joker by Thomas Mann)
". . . The action had been roughly thought out in advance, but the details had to be improvised. The vocal strains, accompanied by the warbling of the clarinets and the drone of my cardboard drum, were sweet and passionate, and the text was strange and sonorous: verses full of bold and grandiose words, which occasionally rhymed but seldom made sense. The opera nevertheless took its course: with my left hand I drummed, with my mouth I sang and played , and with my right hand I conducted not only the performers on the stage but everyone else, with such diligent care that as each act ended enthusiastic applause broke out, the curtain had to rise again and again and the conductor was often obliged to turn round on his rostrum and express his thanks with a dignified but fortified bow to the auditorium.
And indeed, as I packed up my theater after such a performance, flushed by my exertions, I would feel both exhausted and happy, as a great artist must feel at the triumphant completion of a work in which he has given of his best. . . "
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
Through the wonder of digital editing and production, the intro and verse chord structure from a pop tune that Oho covers became the creation that I have posted here.
Reminds me a bit of Santana.
Little Eye
by John P. Graboski, David Reeve & Raymond M. Jozwiak
Performed by Oho: Jay Graboski, David Reeve and
Ray Jozwiak (from a May 2013 rehearsal recording)
