I wrote Winter Nights the winter of 2003 during the holiday season. I was thinking about the soldiers in Iraq and what their families might be going through. I teach in a area where there are a…Read more
I wrote the song Alive & Kickin’ in the spring of 2006. I keep a folder of music ideas that come to me. I was going through the folder and found the basic motif that makes up the beginning of…Read more
I wrote Blues For T. the summer of 2006. The T. stands for Thelonious as in Thelonious Sphere Monk who was one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. Thelonious’ friends called him T. I was told this by…Read more
I wrote The Island Song as an assignment for a jazz composition class with my teacher James E. Smith in 1999. The song's chord structure is based on George Gershwin’s "I Got Rhythm" which is in a rounded binary form…Read more
I wrote the song "Look For Hope" the summer of 2004. It is a song that is hard to describe or even explain. I was thinking about the events that took place after September 11, 2001. I remember that day…Read more
I wrote "Urban Skies" in early 2006. I live in a part of Dayton, OH that is near a hospital and at night you can hear helicopters and sirens. I was lying in bed one night and the noise was…Read more