Songwiting

I am not a typical jazz songwriter and not a typical new thought songwriter. My piano teacher several years ago called my tunes 'jazz influenced art songs'. That is what they are. I later added 'with a spiritual perspective'. I am really interested in writing tunes about evolution of consciousness, healing, awareness, and nature. If I can put them in a hip jazz setting, so much the better. I sang classical art song for 4 years at university and the form and sensibility has stayed with me all these years, but we've just moved into jazz sonorities. I love that still moment or the place where the underlying harmonic movement goes somewhere where you least expect it, where the lyric and music are one evolving intertwining picture, moving the song to a whole new place. As in the theater, by the end you have changed.

I consider myself a student of jazz, and continue to be awed and humbled by what there is to learn as a singer and piano player. I love that moment where I hear something new and my brain goes into this no-time ecstactic place, and we cross the barrier.

The music paints the picture, the picture writes the music.