1. Theme 37 - Chasinesque 05:58
2. Theme 38 - Six Bar Blues 06:30
3. Theme 39 - For Vaughn Benjamin 06:03
4. Theme 40 - Sarcasm 06:42
5. Theme 41 - For Cooper-Moore 06:55
6. All of Me and Mario 06:21
7. Recap 03:50
This is a live set from Scholes Street Studio in Brooklyn in October 2019.
Theme 37 - Chasinesque - An 8 bar head with a heart of 12 and some free time too as we keep Chasin' after Trane. I originally wrote this to be performed by Ras Moshe, Matt Lavelle, Rodney Chapman, Evan, Tcheser Holmes, and me at Muchmore's in December 2018.
Theme 38 - Six Bar Blues - Some 6 bars and some vamping on a piece originally written for Jon Panikkar's blues band during its January 2019 performance at Bushwick Public House.
Theme 39 - For Vaughn Benjamin - based on a riff by the reggae band Midnite which featured Benjamin as lead singer. He was a brilliant vocalist and wordsmith who died young at 50 in 2019.
Theme 40 - Sarcasm - written by my daughter Ariella, age 7 at the time. She carefully wrote out the stacked five-note clusters in each hand of the A section, which showed me how serious she was about the piece.
Theme 41 - For Cooper-Moore - dedicated to the gorgeously inventive pianist, legend of NYC free jazz from the loft scene down to today. He has blessed me with his example and also the generosity of kind words in support of my journey on piano.
We ended our set with an improvised piece which I subsequently titled All of Me and Mario for audible reasons.
The last track on the album is a solo piano improv I recorded during a February 2019 session at the City College of New York. This studio improv seemed to me to recap and condense some of the preceding sonic ideas heard on this live album.
Sonic Eel is:
Eric Plaks - piano
Evan Crane - bass
Leonid Galaganov - drums
Tracks 1-6 recorded October 27, 2019 by René Alain live at Scholes Street Studio, Brooklyn, as part of John Loggia's SonicXchange series.
Track 7 recorded in the City College of New York recording studio by Trevor Schlam.
Tracks 1-6 mixed and mastered by Jon Rosenberg
Track 7 mixed and mastered by Yoni Kretzmer (with additional mastering by Jon Rosenberg)
Production and design by E. Plaks
All music © Plaks - Crane - Galaganov, 2019
