Just some liner notes about the new album.
Note: This is long, so bear with me…
The concept of Ambient Music has been around for decades, and has been defined as such:
“Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. A form of instrumental music, it may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.” —Wikipedia
Most of my inspiration regarding Ambient Music comes from my admiration for these Ambient Music pioneers: Deuter, Liquid Mind, Brian Eno
My first exposure to Brian Eno’s music was the album, “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”. Brian Eno is an English composer, producer, visual artist… and is probably the earliest pioneer of Ambient Music. He has also produced musical artists like Bryan Ferry and Peter Gabriel.
Deuter is a German multi-instrumentalist who is an early pioneer of New Age music, but I list him as an Ambient Music pioneer because of the ambient nature of his music and his ability to create atmospheres of sound.
The Album
1. Songs from the Ambient Field – like most of my recent work, this was an improvised piece composed late one night on the Yamaha Digital Grand. Given my experience of playing Jazz for much of my life, i treat music as being improvisational and approach it like Zen Meditation. music should be captured in the moment, and although genres like Classical Music are rigid and notated in detail, there is still room for personal interpretation and stylistic expression. The title track is based on various photos I’d taken of fields and meadows, and the cover photo is the epitome of this view I’d seen and taken, and I’ve tried my best to capture the feelings and essence of the experience.
2. Distance Eludes Us – in the physical world, the concept of distance eludes us in reality… as well as the limitations of our being on various levels. but, getting into travel, particularly flying on planes (every since 9/11) our world has changed forever and experience of flying is somewhat marred by 9/11 and the security concerns that followed. to me flying is also frought with a certain amount of anxiety, and especially now with a global pandemic.
3. Hi-Lili Hi-Lo – a favorite of mine which I perform at gigs. i was inspired by Rickie Lee Jones’ version of this cover song from her album Pop-Pop, as she had experienced Love lost, and I really liked her minimalist approach and accompanied sadness on this song, which usually is a bit more cheerful and bright, usually played in a spritely waltz.
4. Another Star System – just my take on space exploration and astral traveling to other star systems and galaxies. 
5. A Place Called Hope – I was searching for Hope on Google Maps one day and found Hope, Kansas, population 368 with the city motto, “There Will Always Be Hope in Kansas”… and I just thought this would be a nice concept for a song title. As we all Hope for a brighter future, better days ahead. And the idea of a place called Hope intrigued me.
6. Atmospheric Changes, Pt. 1 – my musical concept of minimalism and musical economy is apparent on this track, and the concept of minimalism is a part of what Ambient Music is.
7. Atmospheric Changes, Pt. 2 – this two part tone poem is just an expression of the scientific studies of global warming and climate change, a seemingly very real phenomenon for our generation and as we continue on in the 21st Century.
8. Smile – another one of my favorite cover songs, and another song of Hope… I threw in a couple of cover songs that I thought fit into the overall theme of this album, as a musical diversion from what could’ve been an all Ambient album. Both covers basically solo piano covers.
9. Elegant Dreamer – just a random tone poem, and was the epitome of a light and airy ambient sound that encompasses the focus of the entire album… just thinking of the old children’s song, “row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream… merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a Dream… and thus we finish the album with the track.
@2021 Western Sage Recorders
