Silver Letters is an independent 2016 release of music written and arranged for classical brass quintet (2 trumpets, french horn, trombone and bass trombone) + rhythm section (guitar, bass, drums). A foray into developing an authentic synthesis of classical-chamber and jazz-improv sensibilities and aesthetics. Not a typical crossover album, with members of the ensemble walking in both worlds comfortably, playing in a literature-music idiom one moment, and improvising the next, using the language of the former to inform the latter and vice versa.
This was a collaboration with the inimitable composer and jazz trumpeter Niran Dasika (go check him out!) who co-wrote and co-produced this album with me. Together we blurred the lines of authorship – each track had creative input from both of us, several swapping hands between us multiple times before settling into their final shape.
On top of that, several tracks draw inspiration from other places still: Andantino in modo di Canzona, the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony that in our homage spills out into an open improvisation before finding its way back to a familiar yet novel close. Somewhere Over the Moon, a composition of mine loosely and vaguely echoing a popular song with a similar name, growings out of a simple ostinato into a powerful, reaching climax, and then back to its minimalistic opening. Turquoise, a tongue-in-cheek name to a nebulous, impressionistic arrangement of Blue in Green that is a fragile ode to my favourite colour (except pink, depending on the day).
If you like what you hear, consider buying this labour of love on bandcamp –