Plans for the new JPQ CD have begun! “Homegrown” will feature music written by my Seattle Jazz peers

“Homegrown” – Music from the Seattle Jazz Scene

Almost immediately after the completion of our last CD, I started to mull over ideas for our next one. Such is the life of the working musician! I came up with a number of ideas, including an album of my compositions, an album of my favorite standards, an album of pop covers. All those would’ve been fun, and will probably happen in the years to come. But I settled on an idea that not only will be fun for us to record but will also shine the light on my peers.

“Homegrown” will feature compositions from my Seattle jazz peers. There are so many amazing jazz musicians in this town and I thought it would be cool to pay tribute to them rather than to a bunch of dead guys or composers I don’t know. I hope that this will bring some much-deserved attention to my peers and the Seattle jazz scene as a whole.

I made a hit list of people I wanted to ask for tunes, and so far every one of them has enthusiastically agreed! Not only that, but when I mentioned the idea on Facebook the other day a few people contacted me and asked if I was accepting submissions! I’m so thrilled with the response I’ve gotten and I’ve already collected a few charts.

Some of the tunes will be brand new and written specifically for this album. Some will be tunes that were previously written but not yet recorded. Some will be tunes that have been recorded before. All of them will be a joy to play!

So far the list of confirmed composers includes:

• Gregg Belisle-Chi
• Andrew Boscardin
• Ryan Burns
• Evan Flory-Barnes
• D’Vonne Lewis
• Thomas Marriott
• Cynthia Mullis
• Nate Omdal
• Michael Owcharuk
• Josh Rawlings
• Marc Seales

I still have a few more people to ask, and I wouldn’t turn more submissions away. I hope to record lots of music and then see which tracks make up a cohesive album. Then I’ll have some bonus material to play with as well or include on a later release. Or who knows, maybe we’ll end up with a double-album!

Realistically we won’t be recording until the Fall, but we will be performing all the tunes at our shows between now and then to see how they take shape. I’ll keep you updated on our progress and share live and rough recordings as they become available.

I submitted the first of many grant proposals for the album today…wish me luck!