Now here comes the latest song from my band The Metrocenter. We recorded this as part of the MWB Semi-Live series at their studio in downtown Jackson — Sergio Fernandez’s old studio for the true JXN heads out there. This was nostalgically gratifying for me because the last time I’d been in that space working on music was with Sergio when I was recording a demo of my sensitive little college sophomore tunes. Think Ben Folds without the anger or the piano. Those scratch takes live somewhere on a cassette. But now I’ve come back, armed with equipment and friends, and have done this. 

Here’s the tune on Spotify and Bandcamp.

I wrote the tune, which turned out to be a kind of homage or sequel to (or desperate imitation of) the Horace Silver classic “Song for My Father,” which I played a kajillion times with my own father and Scott Turner. For you Steely Dan Quiz Bowl geeks, you will also recognize the Silver original as the prompt for the bass riff in the Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number.” 

Liner notes: 
Denny Burkes: drums
Jakob Clark: bass and vocals
Drew McKercher: guitar and trombone
Barrett Hathcock: Rhodes and composition
Tyler Kemp: engineering and trumpet

Thanks to TK for engineering. Thanks to John Scanlon for letting me borrow his Fender Twin at a moment’s notice. Thanks to Marc Leffler for having us in his studio. And thanks to Horace Silver. 

Sometimes I try to think through what I’m doing in this group, what I’m trying to do writing these tunes, what I’m shooting for. When we put out our first single, I joked that it was like jazz, except without the annoying parts. I still think that’s true basically, and I actually like jazz. I mean, it’s complicated. Jazz is gigantic as a category and historically fraught as a term and also implies a certain approach to the music. Mostly what it means is a commitment to improvisation over a form, if there is a form, variation upon a theme, with the proportion heavily weighted toward variation. What this song doesn’t have, both general for The Metrocenter tunes but also other instrumental tunes I tend to write, is that they don’t have the variation. They don’t have any solos over the form. They’re almost completely theme. Yes, there is some variation, but it’s not the current standard practice of jazz improvisation, which is: some kind of intro, head of the tune, everyone solos over the form, head out. When I see a big jazz band with lots of horns or other instrumentation, it’s exciting, but I also realize: everyone of these fellas is going to take a solo. We’re gonna be here for 15 minutes. It gets boring. I tend to like the heads better than the solos. Are there transcendent solos? Sure. All of these generalizations are wafer thin. I write as if I have any idea what I am doing regarding writing a tune, as if it’s deliberate practice, when in fact I’m driving backwards in the dark, with no cameras, in the fog, hoping I don’t hit anything too substantial. 

(Other details I dislike about modern jazz in particular since I’m being honest: Often I can’t tell what the theme even is. The drummer is messing with the time, fracturing it, problematizing the grid, and I can’t tap my foot. The horn players, having explored all available notes in their long solos, resort to exploring the uppermost register of their instrument, also known as kicking the cat. Bands recording yet another version of a jazz standard that’s been done unto death — music for zombies. And finally, the music often feels annoying on purpose.)

Also, part of the reason there aren’t any solos is because I can’t solo on piano. It’s the old aesthetic-choice-by-way-of-personal-limitation path. 

Perhaps this is not jazz at all, not as we’ve come to understand it. In a long profile of Khruangbin in the New York Times Magazine last year, David Byrne was quoted describing the band as “instrumental pop,” a long tradition, though now somewhat obscured. I found that phrase clarifyingly unpretentious. I suppose pop music simply means music that’s meant to be enjoyed by people, or the people, music not meant for religious procedures, or as background to some other activity such as a movie or a TikTok, though of course we know that music, once recorded, gets repurposed for all manner of distraction; nor is it music that’s intentionally fenced off via genre, like death metal or bluegrass, speaking primarily to the requirements of its selected category rather than the uninitiated strangers who might encounter it. One of the problems I have with contemporary jazz is that it feels like walking into a higher level math class, both in terms of composition and presentation, a private language clothed in the haughtiness of art. Whereas I suppose pop music is just music to listen to, to enjoy. Music that wants to be liked, perhaps too desperately. That enjoyment is primary over representing the artistic bonafides of the musicians. The late Steve Albini, when asked his opinion of jazz, said he didn’t like it because he found it to be “vain music.” I do like jazz, but I think that’s a challenging adjective. He’s not wrong. 

Perhaps the reason I even think of the term jazz when writing these short instrumental tunes is that jazz is synonymous with short form instrumental tunes and also it’s considered artistically superior. I just want to be taken seriously! And also liked! I am fun at parties.

The question then becomes if you’re not going to have solos, if you’re not going to introduce variation that way, then how are you going to keep the songs from being boring. If you’re writing a tune with vocals, then you have different verses. The words, the whole linguistic channel of information, changes the meaning of the song, an arc over time. But if it’s just the sound, then what changes? Do you just repeat yourself forever? You could change the sound, either through texture or through new instrumentation, but I find this dissatisfying. There’s too much emphasis on texture in pop music. Between the synths and the guitar pedals, which really are the same thing, there’s too much sound, and not enough emphasis on changing the rhythm or the harmony. I am mostly against distortion as a goal, which becomes a kind of aural filler. The Yiddish word for the stuffing they put inside coats is schlock.

So far then it seems that the solution is to keep things brief and introduce more themes, more melody. Most jazz standards are AABA form. I find myself searching for C and D and maybe even E sections to keep things interesting. But then again, all of this implies I am in some mode of control. Like I said above, I have no idea what I am actually doing. I did not go to music school. I did not study composition. I am mostly trying to relieve boredom, and whatever else lives deep down below boredom.