Music Samples
A few examples of music produced at Jangada.
Here's Bronze Dream, an improv piano I did in August 23 and then later overdubbed the Valente Electroacoustic piano.
Step 2
These are the improvisations Fabio Fonseca and I have done here as well as collaborations with other artist friends. Fabio has had careers as a chart-topping Brazilian pop artist, a sought-after producer working with Sony, EMI and other labels for top Brazilian acts, a General Manager of an innovative keyboard and synth company, and more. Plus, he's a great friend and a wonderful, kind person! These songs feature instruments Fabio's keyboard company created, The Valente - an electroacoustic piano (think portable Wurlitzer but better) and The Lizard - a modular synth. Also featured: Moog Subsequent 37 synths plus a bunch of percussion toys, and even pots and pans (yup!). I'm on the Bosendorfer. Many songs to date are simply record-and-play improvs with heavy editing/producing done later by me. Recently we're circling back to Fabio's roots - pop song production.
Rollin the Paradice
(see the pun?) This is the first song we've done after our improv-centric cd Leopard Run. It's a totally different tact and leans on Fabio's 20+ year experience as a sought-after pop producer in Brazil. No more improv - all pop oriented now. We collaborated with our very talented friends in South Jersey to get great drums, vocals, and very soon, guitars (it's still a work in progress).
Forests of Pandora
A cinematic, orchestrated piece. Started life as a long rambling improv and after much production and editing work, was wrestled into a proper song. It leads the listener through a day in a magical forest with a coherent structure (beginning, middle, end). You wouldn't even recognize its humble beginnings as a kind of an almost throwaway improv session that was a bit hard to listen to, tbh. But sometimes with enough patience, time and luck, I can home in on a small detail or sound in the source material and then help surface it into a fuller idea that does justice to those little initial whispers. Like, with this one. Fortunately!
Maybe you have a piece needing some production work? Perhaps I could be of assistance?
Family Portraits
From our cd Leopard Run.
Fabio and I improvisation 8/11/2023. Starting with Last Call, we've been occasionally experimenting with these more simply structured (but still improvised) songs which gives Fabio a chance to settle in and focus on his beautiful soaring leads rather than playing catch up with an ever-changing structure of an undisciplined pianist (me) throws at him haha. I found this to be super relaxing, which is saying something coming from me (my solo stuff especially is often called 'relaxing').
Last Call
From our cd Leopard Run.
Straight-ahead blues featuring the Bosey piano and headlined by Fabio's great playing on Tokai Organ and his company's own Lizard Modular Synth. Originally 13 minutes I cut down to 5. See if you can hear the cuts.
The Swirl
A basic lengthy piano synth improv I shortened, chopped up, and produced into this.
Samba Train
We took a simple progression and added percussion from Splice, a loop library. This was then assembled in one of my digital audio workstations (DAW for short) called Ableton Live, which excels at loop-style music. I also work in the Logic Pro DAW.
Phil's Lakehouse Jazz BBQ outdoor performance
With the help of my good friend Bob Stanfield from The Cave in Clementon, NJ, we captured an amazing performance by a local jazz band headed by our wonderful friend Phil Derenbecher on drums. Let's call them The Phil Deren Quintet. The recording was edited over the next few months here at Jangada and kind of surprised all of us in how it turned out! Sometimes hard work pays off!
Footsteps
Live performance captured on a warm summer day.
Song For My Father
...the trick in post was keeping the horns front and center. A few choice compressors helped immensely.
Equinox
...the drums here got special attention with Phil's tasty fills imparting a flavor I was careful to preserve. The raw tracks needed work to maintain separation, clarity and a sense of space.
Bad Idea Band
These guys came to me via my very good friend Bob Stanfield, an amazing engineer, keyboardist and all-around great guy. They comprise some very funny and kind people, who also happen to be Super talented. There's Allen, the drummer you can set your watch to, who can also belt out songs with such a pair of lungs that he could sing from across a football field (in here he had to step *way far away from the mic when doing background vocals with his bandmates haha!); Dan, an amazing singer, guitarist and lyricist; Norm, the chillax bassist who's just cool; and Bob Stanfield. Oh, and did I mention these guys are hilarious! Always cracking jokes.
Lazy Daze
A toe-tappin tune about spending time with a special person on a happy sunny lazy day. Which is ironic considering this was recorded here on an insanely rainy cold miserable day in July 2023! Drummer Allen played on those wooden box drum things (hence the thwompy kick). Man he can make anything sound good.
Promotional Video for Keymagic's VALENTE PIANO
Ken Voison, a New-York based artist who plays regularly in and around the area, played the Valente Piano, an electroacoustic compact lightweight instruments produced by KeyMagic as part of promotional video for its release. Ken is also a retired firefighter.
New York State Of Mind
Very fitting for a native New Yorker to sing, and he does a nice job of it. Footage by Andre Maranhao and edited by the Valente Brazil team.
100 Days of Snow
Merry Christmas All! Remember this one - we recorded it back when Larry and Sue moved to Nelsonville more than 20 years ago!