Program Note:   

A midwestern child of the 60s playing keyboards in rock bands, my love of rock guitar developed from pop to progressive in high school, and ultimately to the Great American Songbook. The result is that, even though I love Clapton and Hendrix,  Film Noir celebrates more the sound of urban blues of the 40s, Brel ballads from the 50s, Les Paul’s sweet 60s sound, 70s B.B. King, 80s west coast minimalism, and 90s fusion.

Tangerine Dream’s wall of sound inspired the feel of Pacific Coast Highway, a rondo in which a finger-picking ostinato alternates with a lithe melody and a crunchy groove.

Torch Song is in binary form featuring call and response duets for solo ‘cello and flügelhorn inspired by hearing Les Paul covering romantic ballads in Milwaukee when I was a boy.

Harry Palmer and James Bond movies are touchstones for You Should See the Other Guy, which crosscuts two musical ideas: a groove, and a flamenco-inspired lick. After the smoke clears, there’s a swinging cadenza followed by a quick coda ending on the “E minor major 9” chord recognized around the world.

The final, most substantial movement, Maybe Not Today, alternates two lyrical themes, each of which is performed twice in its entirety: the first is a ballad in the modern chanson style of Jacques Brel in which the soloist performs duets with the English Horn and solo ‘cello; the second begins on the open G string of the violins and builds into a spacious, unabashedly lyrical love theme inspired by Rick’s line to Ilse in the final scene of the great 1943 noir film Casablanca: “If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”

—August 2024