|
Jeffry
Hamilton Steele
Prism
Recordings | |
We
were all poets...
Music
for Classical & Electric Guitars with Synthesizers These
pieces incorporate elements of classical, jazz, Latin, rock and New Age -- some
of which were written for theatrical and television productions. The title cut
was used in my soundtrack to the WGBY-TV documentary "W.E.B. du Bois of Great
Barrington" -- which was nominated for a New England Grammy Award.
total
time: 45:56
Jeffry
Steele guitars & synthesizers
Recorded
at Montague Music Studio, 1991-92 Turners
Falls, MA |
DAY
1] Dawn
in the Andes (7:14)
2]
We were all poets... (4:41)
3]
La Alegria (1:36)
4]
Serenade for the Unafraid (7:17)
[click
for 2:24 (1.9 MB) MP3 excerpt]
Can't
wait? Here's a RealAudio version.
5]
The New World (2:19) | NIGHT
6] Halibut
Point (5:23)
7]
Plum Island (2:52)
8]
Outlines in the Mist (4:01)
9]
Memories (3:42)
10]
The First Light (2:41)*
11]
Prayer for Justice (4:10) |
$15
(includes shipping within U.S. -- for
overseas rate, write me)
[If
you experience difficulty with the credit card payment process, you may write
a check to Jeffry Steele and send it to him at 1111 Washington St - rear, Gloucester
MA 01930-1172] |
*this
selection is an earlier incarnation of "Sunset Reverie" from Voice of Creation.
NOTESLooking
back over this collection pieces -- recorded over five years ago and composed
as many as eight years before that -- "We were all poets" now strikes me as an
elegy to the Central America solidarity movement of the 1980's. Indeed, many of
us felt -- as did the Nation Thief character quoted below -- like poets in a New
World; where our efforts to bring greater attention to injustice in that region
paralleled our inner journey of greater self-realization. Most of the pieces were
initially inspired by experiences in, or concerning, Nicaragua -- though one would
not be likely to infer this from simply hearing them. Others refer to Gloucester,
where I was born and have, since making this recording, returned to live. Many
of them began life as songs whose melodies outgrew the need for words. The culmination
of five years experimentation and study of synthesis and MIDI, it represents hundreds
of hours of chiseling and refining. And while my music has taken an increasingly
acoustic direction in the intervening years, I continue to take pride in -- and
enjoy listening to -- this opus. Jeffry
Steele, March 1997
Dawn
in the Andes When
I lived in Cambridge in the early eighties, many of my friends were taking trips
to South America. My upstairs neighbor brought back with her a wonderful record
by the Peruvian group Savia Andina. I couldn't get one tune out of my head, so
I incorporated it into a piece I was writing, Pablo Neruda's Funeral. Scored for
piano, trumpet, electric guitar and percussion, it was performed on my two "Voices
of Latin America" concerts in the Fall of '83. Four years later, I revived the
theme and variations portion of the piece and wrote a new introduction based on
the first three notes of the first theme (E-B-A). What you first hear are those
three notes sounded at the same time, as a chord -- with the instrumentation changing
for each successive note. The next chord is the same thing up another half-step
(G#-D#-C#) and the last one (F#-A#-F) is comprised of the three remaining notes
of the twelve-tone scale. I also imported the original bombo (drum) pattern, which
was somewhere in between a triplet and a dotted rhythm. The manner in which the
larger zampoñe (pan pipes) are naturally played -- with notes alternating
between players who need an entire breath for each one -- is emulated here through
stereo placement.
"We
were all poets. . ."
This
was originally written in the Fall of 1985 for the theater production "The Nation
Thief" (David Perrigo's adaptation of the novel by Robert Houston) in which I
played the part of U.S. mercenary leader William Walker. The music underscored
a speech in which Walker's black surgeon describes Nicaragua's beauty: "And in
the cool air of the morning, before the rains came, we saw a line of volcanoes
like lace on the horizon, like the world was about to be created all over again.
Yes we were all poets that first morning, poets." This music was also featured
in my score to the TV documentary "W.E.B. Du Bois of Great Barrington" (WGBY,
PBS station out of Springfield, MA).
La
Alegria
Originally
conceived of as a song, it is titled for the annual festival in Nicaragua, La
Alegria (The Rejoicing). It is my "Gypsy Kings" number.
Serenade
for the Unafraid
Again,
these melodies first came through fancying themselves songs. As each song fragment
had heroism as a common theme, I strung them together -- with transitions and
bridges -- into an appropriately titled "medley". The first section -- then the
song "Emilia" -- was originally written for and performed by Sue Kranz, while
she was a member of my trio Por la Paz.
The
New World
Also
used in "The Nation Thief", it was the music to which William Walker marched triumphantly
into Grenada, Nicaragua, in the 1850's.
Halibut
Point
Just
off the coast near my parents' home was a large bell buoy its four bells struck
by clappers hinged in four directions. The "music" it made therefore depended
on how the waves tossed the buoy. This piece commemorates the thousands of fishermen
who went down during Gloucester's hey-day as a fishing port; perhaps it is their
restless souls that sound the buoy bells. All the "nature sounds" heard here,
and in the other pieces recorded in this album, are synthesized -- as I preferred
the aesthetic challenge in programming such sounds to recording them from life.
Plum
Island
Across
the bay from Halibut Point lies Plum Island, a seven-mile stretch of sand, most
of which is protected as a Wildlife Sanctuary. Moonlight sparkling on the water
is emulated by this musical texture.
Outlines
in the Mist
Sketched
in Managua (along with "The New World") and shared as jam session material with
fellow musicians on the first Arts for a New Nicaragua brigade. The intro was
written to accompany a nocturnal scene in "The Nation Thief".
Memories
Originally
planned as a "classical" song lamenting the murder of a Nicaraguan family, the
electric guitar here aspires to the intensity of the human voice.
The
First Light
This
started out as a coda to a rather violent piece. It has since been slowed further
and used to accompany meditation.
Prayer
for Justice
Written
just after returning from Nicaragua in 1984, this "British ballad" was a song
titled "Love Is" -- sung in performance at that time by Rosemarie Straijer and
Laura Burns (who went on to form Flor de Caña).
jeffry@addr.com
(Feel free to write with
questions,
comments
or just to say hello).
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