Improvised Laughter

My compositional style has turned largely towards improvisation in the past 3 years or so. Along with the influence of my buddy Sean, improvisation has revealed more depth to the music I've always loved, as well as the music I've wished to create. I have a catalog of improvised recordings on my computer that have been kept relatively private. I suppose that their spiritual connotations have kept these pieces close, without any attachment to the ambition that a composing career demands. And although this blog is public, I also consider it something of a private space.

Sean and I have been playing as a duo under the name Mad Man's Laughter. We began playing in what was once a tool shed - later a very redroom just big enough for one pieced together drum set and a large theater organ. The sound of the organ pumping through a lopsided but virile leslie speaker was a powerful sound, no doubt. So much that we were convinced that this music would be "ecstatic gospel" if anything at all.

A year has passed since this recording was made. The house was sold, the shed emptied. Our organ was too big to move, so it was put to sleep. Piece by piece, we took it apart - hoping to salvage the leslie. I've never felt nostalgia for an instrument before, but my feelings for that organ are pretty close. I'm sad that it's gone. I have since bought an old hammond, an old rhodes, but it's not the same. One day I will be an old man searching the internet, willing to pay any price for that same organ.

This track is called Mad Man's Laughter. Clearly one of our ecstatic improvisations. There are some mild hoots and hollers to prove it. More to come.