It's finally here. I won't say (admit) how much behind schedule, but that's okay. Everything came together at just the right time, and now, "Keeping A Hand in This, and That, and The Other Thing" is on hand and will soon be available on your favorite steaming and download platforms. This product has been a lesson in patience and providence. One lesson I've already had ample opportunity to learn is that you cannot allow circumstances to dictate artistic decisions (to the extent that is possible) in a recording project. If it's not ready, it doesn't go. If you run out of money, don't just put it out anyway, wait to save some more. If it's probably good enough, but certainly not what it could be, then schedule another recording session. Et cetera. After multiple sessions and significant technical issues (resulting in about half the takes being unusable), I was finally willing to consider conceding that I as was close as I was going to get to my goal of having an appropriately diverse project, and prepared the final master recording. Then I waited. It may be that inner hesitation (or perhaps even in some cases, procrastination) is connected with our intuitive sense. Beyond recognizing the problem, this intuition sees what we (cognitively) cannot: a resolution. it won't detail it to us, but it summons us to hope, faith, and trust. These were realized when I got a call from a graduate student at The Peabody Institute, in Baltimore, asking if I would be willing to record some solo piano tracks for his Master's project. I'd walk in, lay down some tracks that he would submit for his project, and I would walk out with the files free to use. Deal. I saw this as my providential extra inning, and made sure, as best I could, to arrive prepared to be in the space. I later heard an account of how I arrived, calm and unassuming, then sat down and made it happen. The door was open for me to walk through, and I knew that I was given (just the right) provision, at just the right time. 4 of the tracks from that (roughly one hour) session were chosen to round out this project. And now my intuition says go. So I am.

A few pictures from the session: 

         One would expect a nice workstation at Peabody. It was. 

Each of the pianos there have names. 

It took a day or so for it to dawn on me.

    Rich, who has since graduated (congrats!), documents the effort.

I periodically experience affirmations of where the musical center of gravity is in my heart. It can happen at any moment as I am listening to Oscar, the (new testament) Basie Big Band, or any other deep swinging happening thing. The other week I came across a live stream from Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring Catherine Russell. Bam. So now the chicken and the egg question: Is this music what reaches me most deeply because I've spent so much of my life immersed in it, to and beyond the point where there is any possibility I can ever accumulate similar time with anything else? Or did I lunge into this musical culture as a teenager (and stay there) because my heart found its home? Yes. But I'm finding a more generalized lesson for myself here as well. I need to find my own (emotional?) connection with whatever it is I want to perform, before I can be anywhere near a satisfactory place (to me) in expressing it. So, once something speaks to me, I can then begin to learn to speak with it, or through it. I need to find that piece or part or area or essence in whatever it is that touches me, in order to connect with my own expression. On one level, this seems obvious, a description of the natural process. On another level, this seems a bit of an epiphany, that can focus my procedure by
understanding my starting point; to find it in my heart/soul before I can begin to effectively manage it in my mind. So (therefore) my most meaningful thoughts are those informed by my deeper feelings. Yes. I need to live in whatever place it is long enough to begin to feel my connection to it (patience, the key to everything). If I apply study to what I can first intuitively find or feel, my study will have more meaning. Okay Joe, get to work (and re-read this every day for the next month).   ;)