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December 2019. Cover art by Justin Bailie
A second volume of piano improvisations from my Patreon project, which was active from October 2018 through March 2020. These improvisations were recorded in Portland, Oregon between January 1st and June 30th, 2019.
March 2019. Cover art by Jeremy Hatch
Inspired by the classic piano improvisation albums by Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea, in late 2018 pianist Jeremy Hatch decided to start a Patreon where he releases three to four piano improvisations every month. He has collected the pieces released during the first several months of the Patreon to make Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1 (out March 1st, 2019). The title is an homage to the classic Corea album of the same name, but it’s also a promise of more volumes to come.
Jeremy recently relocated from the heart of Oakland, California to a suburban part of Portland, Oregon, and the dramatic change of scene and weather was a surprisingly big factor in the creation of these pieces. “The first track on the album is called ‘Rainy Day,’ and the mood of that track, the contemplative quality of a quiet rainy afternoon in a quiet part of the world, runs through all these pieces,” he says. “There is a lot of music inspired by nature on the album too. Since we moved here, my wife and I have spent a lot of time hiking on the trails near our new home and out in the Columbia River Gorge, and a number of these pieces, like ‘Yellow Leaves’ and ‘Waterfall Trail,’ were inspired by the sights and sounds of those weekends.”
The weekly challenge was really inspiring even though the initial audience for these pieces consisted of just a couple very close friends and relatives, and the amount of money involved was very small. “It amounts to less than a dinner out,” he says. “But just having a few dollars involved changed it into something more serious for me — I suddenly felt that I was on the hook to produce on the schedule I’d set, so I started making it happen week after week. The entire existence of this album is due to the support of my two first Patreon supporters.”
February 2018. Cover art by Jessica LeBeau
Send Me Word When You Get Back is a concept album built around ten dreams: each instrumental and song on the album were inspired by particular dreams that Jeremy awoke from and recorded over the years and turned into prose poems and lyrics. A classically-trained pianist, guitarist and composer who later devoted himself to folk and rock music, Jeremy has combined on this album the rigorous compositional approach of classical music with the direct appeal of folk songs and the hard-driving intensity of rock.
Jeremy wrote and recorded the album after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016, which funded the equipment, software and time necessary to complete the project. He performed all the parts himself, working mostly out of his own home studio in Oakland and a friend’s studio in Martinez. His Kickstarter backers have given the album an enthusiastic reception: many have compared it to being taken on a journey, or to listening to a soundtrack for an imaginary movie.
On releasing his first album at the age of 40, Jeremy says: "waiting to do this until now has given me the opportunity to incorporate many more influences than I could have done 15 years ago. At 25, the best I could have managed was to record some classical guitar music. I've spent the past 15 years maturing my craft, steeping myself in various folk music traditions, performing live, and along the way, learning secondary instruments and developing my recording skills. Also, it happens that all my life, I have been equally devoted to language, and for many years I focused heavily on literary writing. All these years of writing fiction and poetry has led to a strong emphasis on story and poetic language in my songs."
The album’s music is dark and rich, and the songs deal with themes of love, loss, and longing. While they don’t tell a continuous story, the listener is drawn from one track to the next by seamless transitions and changes of mood. A dynamic instrumental introduction featuring acoustic guitar, piano, and a soaring guitar lead draws us into the title track and first single, which seems to be the story of a lover who went to pursue a life in the wilderness and was never heard from again, as told by the one left behind.
Later tracks have a similar emotional tone. In one, the singer is standing in a train station, wondering which direction their lover has taken, having brought “all my questions / like so many bags to be lost.” In the second single, “You Never Really Knew,” the singer remembers details of being with a certain lover and regrets his failure of courage: “I never said what I wanted to say / that night was no gift to give you / that night when all I did was look at your face / and how I felt, you never really knew.”
Between each of these songs are instrumental pieces which sometimes sound like large symphonic groups and at other times are simply one or two guitars and a piano.
The final track gives the album a mysterious, yet somehow more hopeful note to close out with. “As You Lie Sleeping” opens with a quiet fingerpicked guitar part over which the singer describes laying together in a room with his lover, who is asleep. The song is filled with tenderness, and it seems to be about his desire to join her in her dreams as well as physically: “So tell me again / tell me as you lie sleeping / tell me which road is right / tell me your dreams and the secrets you’ve been keeping / tell me when I join you tonight.” To quote Dylan, I’ll let you be in my dream if you’ll let me be in yours.
November 2017.
The Flood Waters EP is an informal recording -- traffic sounds and all -- that I recorded at 11th Avenue Records in San Francisco in 2017 as part of a benefit project, conceived and organized by Jane Frank, to help raise funds for survivors of Hurricane Harvey. Each of these songs has a long history with me and I hope you enjoy them.