Output details

Second Handed-Blues - CD album (44 minutes long)

Released on ASC Records, April 2011. Performed at: Capstone Theatre, Liverpool Hope University, April 2011; The Vortex, as part of London Jazz Festival, November 2011; Axis Arts Centre, MMU Cheshire, February 2012. Catfish broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Jazz Line-Up, July 2011.

One of the primary research objectives of Second-Handed Blues was to develop methods of ‘code-mixing’ in jazz, within the still relatively rare format of solo piano with sampling/production elements. Most tracks began as my piano compositions, some with particular samples from vintage recordings in mind, to which Paul added further samples and production elements.

Insights derived from the creative process include the formulation of particular methods of code-mixing. These methods may be broadly categorised into two types. In the first, differently coded musical ‘blocks’ are set against each other, either sequentially or simultaneously, e.g. Catfish, in which a modified sample of a delta guitar riff is set against a post-bop piano idiom. In the second, two or more individual musical parameters within a block are coded differently, producing a more subtle integration of idioms, e.g. the ‘funk in clusters’ piano figure that opens Stavin’ Chain. Both these approaches relate strongly to postmodern arts practice, in which disparate genres and styles are often mixed. However, unlike a bricolage approach, in which elements are rendered ‘free-floating’ (as in, for example, John Zorn’s ‘jump-cut’ approach), we arrived at an approach in which even the more obviously juxtaposed elements work together in a sustained way. Due to this, possible affinities between disparate historical eras may be convincingly suggested.

Chris Ackerley corroborates the originality of the research in his review for NW Jazzworks:

[T]his is an album of compositions that utilises the patchwork jazz history cohesively, combining elements of several traditions to produce a unique and innovative sound.