 |
|  | Dave Peck: Good Road by Jason West Part 2
| Keeping Gorst The Friendly Growl locked up in the basement of DP’s subconscious is preferable, but not always possible, especially when Johnson and La Barbera are pounding on the door, begging him to come out and play. “I guess when I get really into it (the music) I loose control, and then I start forgetting (not to growl),” Peck says. “I don’t know. It’s always there in the recording studio. I try to keep it to a minimum.”
“The First Song of Spring” is the only original composition here and a curious one. It’s without a traditional beginning or end. Its bridge and choruses overlap indistinguishably. There are countless key changes, no tonal center and no resolution to the building harmonic tension. It teases and tantalizes, sounding ultimately like an erudite musical exercise. Which, in fact, it is. Young composers in Peck’s 1992 music theory class at Cornish College of the Arts (where DP taught for 18 years before retiring in 2003) wrote the chord progression according to a set of rules for standard harmony that they had discussed during the year. “It was basically a random thing where students chose the chords and the keys and I went home that night and wrote a simple melody,” explains the professor. “I think the kids in the class were probably trying to make it as hard as possible.”
Saving the best for last, the trio offers a simple yet beautiful rendition of Rogers and Hart’s “She Was Too Good To Me.” Ballads like this one are why I listen to Dave Peck. Aural visions of melancholy, heartbreak and happiness are portrayed with the same honesty and humility as heard on “Ana Luiza” (on 3 and 1) and “I Loves You, Porgy” (Out of Seattle).
One wonders, is there someone or something that provides the pianist with inspiration? An image of perfection? Magic elixir? “No,” he says. “I just love that song.” | | AllAboutJazz |
|
|
|
|
|